Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion/Archive 15

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For some time I had noticed this the subcategories of

) 13:57, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I think you are approaching this problem from the wrong direction. It is entirely possible to populate the "female (event)ers" type categories, it just needs work because this is a relatively new and neglected category type. It is counter-intuitive to suggest that creating hundreds of smaller categories will make this task any easier.

Your structure has a negative impact at a national level too. Category:Dutch high jumpers now divides seven articles between two categories, when it could easily keep them all together. If we divided national categories by both event and sex then each nation will have forty subcategories. There are only around 150 articles on Dutch athletes. Virtually all these categories are going to be very narrow indeed. These ideas are more feasible for large countries like Russia and the United States, but I don't think this intersection is a very well thought out one for the rest of the 160 countries which don't have so many athletes. SFB 19:49, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Also, it doesn't really help that you removed a sizeable number of articles from that category structure recently. Given these edits and this subsequent proposal, it's hard for me to draw a conclusion which isn't negative about your editing. SFB 20:05, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

A new user, User:Ashamedant, has created a bunch of new categories for city landmarks and has added them to hundreds of articles. Examples of the new categories: Category:Albuquerque Landmark; Category:Riverside Landmark; Category:Santa Monica Landmark; and Category:San Diego Landmark. In the case of San Diego there was already an existing category, Category:Landmarks in San Diego, California; Ashamedant has been removing that category from articles and replacing it with Category:San Diego Landmark.

I see a problem with the name of these new categories. It seems that most such existing categories are titled the way the San Diego one was, as "Category:Landmarks in City, State". Existing categories include Category:Landmarks in Chicago, Illinois; Category:Landmarks in San Francisco, California; Category:Landmarks in Seattle, Washington; Category:Landmarks in Omaha, Nebraska; etc. This format seems to be universally used in my small sample. Is this in fact the current standard format, and if so, should there be discussion before introducing a new format? (For that matter, even if the proposed new format "Cityname Landmark" is to be used, it needs to be plural and the "L" made lowercase.)

I have asked Ashamedant not to do any more with these categories until the name can be discussed and community consensus reached. I don't know if this is the best place to discuss it but I will post in a few other places and direct discussion here. Input appreciated. --MelanieN (talk) 15:24, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Well, 'Landmarks in' is the established form that has community support. Names like Category:Riverside Landmark fail the naming convention in addition to being against past consensus. It also makes this appear like it is an official designation, which is normally done as a list. It would be appropriate for User:Ashamedant to undo the moves from existing categories and explain why this new form is better and see if there is a consensus for it. Excluding this issue, any discussion could open the bag of worms over what should or should not be included as a landmark. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:45, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi MelanieN and Vegaswikian. Thanks for your comments. It seems there is a little confusion over what I was doing. As MelanieN pointed out "In the case of San Diego there was already an existing category, Category:Landmarks in San Diego, California". It appeared as though that category and the other categories that were named "Landmarks in City, State" were originally created to be used for "landmarks officially designated by the city or county govt." (descriptive notes on most of them said so) and were made subcats of the "Landmarks in State cat. and sub-subcats of "Landmarks in country" which appeared to be used for the more general meaning of the word landmark. As a result people were seeing these city landmark cats at the bottoms of pages and adding pages to the cats that fit the more general definition of the word. (hence the can of worms Vegaswikian mentioned). I was simply trying to clear up this ambiguity by making a "locally designated sub-category". In the above example, I created the sub-cat Category:San Diego Landmark, that I made a subcat of the more general city landmark cat Category:Landmarks in San Diego, California, and I was also adding the new subcat to Category:Locally designated landmarks in the United States. You can find all the new cats there.

In short, all I was doing was making a more specific subcat. I may have been mistaken in trying to make the sub-cat name too simple, maybe I should have used "City Name designated landmark" instead.

Please see Category:Locally designated landmarks in the United States for all the cats in question. I was almost done except for New york City, Berkeley, and San Francisco which is why those lists remain in the parent cat. Please let me know if I should finish those three cities or not. Any suggestions for sub-cat names would also be appreciated. Thanks for your comments. Ashamedant (talk) 22:59, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Well, what are you pointing out is usually handled as a list and not a category. So at this point, I would favor deletion of this new series of categories. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:43, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

The existence of lists is not a valid reason for deleting categories.

WP:NOTDUP. Ashamedant (talk

) 01:35, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with Vegaswikian, unfortunately. You have worked very hard on this and it will be a lot of work to undo it; I'm sorry about that. But I do think a list would be better for this purpose than a somewhat confusing subcategory of a plainly titled category (I for one didn't understand the distinction and to some extent still don't). In any case all the categories would have to be retitled, to make the word "landmark" plural and eliminate the capital L. Capitalization appears to be a problem with your new lists as well; for example it should be "List of Berkeley landmarks, structures of merit, and historic districts" rather than "List of Berkeley Landmarks, Structures of Merit, and Historic Districts" - only the proper nouns should be capitalized. For those cities that did not already have a landmarks category, such as Albuquerque, you might keep the category but rename it in the standard style, such as Category:Landmarks in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Of course, you don't have to accept the recommendation of just two of us; you could wait for more community input before taking any action. --MelanieN (talk) 09:14, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Response to comments about me: Your comments are really starting to frustrate me MelanieN. I am trying to give you the benefit of the doubt but you are making it difficult. You have commented twice now and both times you have misrepresented what I have done. The first time you said I renamed categories. Something I never did. I don't even think I have access rights to do that. I politely explained that I created sub-cats instead. Now you comment a second time and state that:

Capitalization appears to be a problem with your new lists as well; for example it should be "List of Berkeley landmarks, structures of merit, and historic districts" rather than 'List of Berkeley Landmarks, Structures of Merit, and Historic Districts'"

I never created

. The page history clearly shows that the page was created by user:Pwbalfour on Feb. 28, 2006 and‎ I only added a category on Feb. 1, 2013. Please refrain from commenting on my actions any further unless you can do so accurately. I will assume again that it was just an honest mistake.

Ashamedant, I apologize for the misinformation. That was simply sloppy research on my part. I was slow to understand your activities, which came to my attention via your removal of the category "Landmarks in San Diego, California" and replacement by "San Diego Landmark" in articles I watchlist. But that's no excuse for making assumptions and false statements. --MelanieN (talk) 16:20, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, I accept your apology. Ashamedant (talk) 23:12, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Response to deletion comments: Spelling and capitalization are not a reason for deleting categories but instead a reason to rename. Additionally, "I don't understand" is also not a valid reason to ask for the deletion of a category. This is not the appropriate place to get into a lengthy explanation so I'll direct you to

where they describe them at the top of each page. You can also see the references at the bottom of each page for more info.

If you would like to propose to rename these sub-cats I will defer to any name you think is appropriate. If you still feel they should be deleted outright, I ask that you move this discussion to the Cfd Project page where you can officially nominate them for deletion. This is not the correct place for a deletion discussion. This is the talk page for the Cfd project and we are not talking about the project. Ashamedant (talk) 01:59, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

When I posted this note here, I was not yet in favor of deletion; I was seeking guidance, and trying to understand what was going on. Let me see if I understand your reasoning now: Your new categories "Cityname landmarks" are intended to be used for "locally designated landmarks". (In explaining this you gave a link to "

Designated landmark

" which talks about National designation, but actually most of your pages imply that the designation is by the city or locality, so I assume you accept "designation" by any official body.) Where there was not already a "Landmarks" category, this creates one, but with a different name than the standard format. Where there is an existing "Landmarks in cityname, statename" category, your new creation is a subcategory; it includes all the landmarks that have been designated by some official body, leaving only the undesignated, "general definition of the word" landmarks as articles in the parent category. As you noted, the "Landmarks in cityname, statename" category was originally created to be used for designated landmarks, and that is overwhelmingly what is in the categories now, but your intent is to pull them all out into a subcategory. It's possible they might ALL be designated landmarks, in which case the parent "Landmarks in cityname, statename" category would be left with only a single entry, namely the "Cityname landmarks" subcategory. Do I have this right?

On rereading: maybe I have this wrong and you specifically did mean your categories to include only landmarks designated by the local government. In that case a subcategory could be named something like Category:Landmarks designated by the city of San Diego, California. However, articles listed in that subcategory should NOT be deleted from the parent category Category:Landmarks in San Diego, California, because many of them have been designated by other agencies as well and thus belong in the general category as well as the city-designated category.--MelanieN (talk) 17:39, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Ashamedant's response: Hi Melanie, and thank you for focusing on the topic this time and not me. Maybe we can clear this up now and reach an agreement. You mentioned a lot so I'll try to respond to one thing at a time. "You said above "Your new categories 'Cityname landmarks' are intended to be used for 'locally designated landmarks. Response: Yes exactly. Recognized by the city in some type of city law that have different criteria for inclusion and that often provide much stronger preservation protection than federal designation. I probably should not have directed you to

Designated landmark which talks about National designation, it only mentions that local designations exist and nothing more. side note -- please understand, you keep referring to the city list pages as pages I created, I did not create any of them, those pages were all already there. Ashamedant (talk

) 23:12, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

I "keep referring" to them? I stood corrected above and struck out the reference to lists; that issue is behind us. --MelanieN (talk) 04:19, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

My feeling is that the subcategories are NOT an improvement in the categorization of landmarks and should be eliminated. (On second reading above: if they are intended to specify locally-designated landmarks only, and are clearly so titled, and do NOT remove articles from the parent category, I could support that.--MelanieN (talk) 17:48, 4 February 2013 (UTC)) Where you created a brand new category for the city, thank you; I would however argue that it be renamed to the "Landmarks in cityname, statename" format. I have no problem with limiting all of the "landmark" categories to landmarks that have been designated by some official body, rather than the colloquial or general use of the word, and would participate in cleaning the categories up to achieve that end. --MelanieN (talk) 16:25, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Response: They were all supposed to be sub-categories that I created. The city cat did not exist at all for some cities, I was going to create them but you asked me to stop everything so I did and only the sub-cats exist in some cases leaving everything looking very messy now.

Yes that is exactly how I would like to rename the sub-cats, as you suggested,

NRHP

".

Comment: I must say I am completely disillusioned by all this. It would have been much easier had you just asked me to explain on my talk page or yours what my intent was before inviting third parties to a discussion. If I were to finish creating the sub-cats (without populating them and with the better proposed name) and the missing city cats this would all be clear to everyone. Even if you didn't like them it is a simple speedy delete request (2 days) by me the creator, because frankly I just don't care anymore. These sub-cats will eventually be created anyway in the future as a necessity unless someone wants to spend the rest of their life cleaning out, as you put it, the city landmark cats of landmarks that don't fit the narrow definition. Ashamedant (talk) 23:12, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

I am failing to see where the general discussion is happening, but as it happens Commons has been categorizing official local landmarks for years, as in Commons:Category:New York City landmarks in Manhattan where the criterion for being a "landmark" is entirely official rather than supplementing a vaguer Wiki-made or Wiki-found colloquial designation. Perhaps this is an appropriate precedent for Wikipedia. Jim.henderson (talk) 11:06, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Yea. I have been going through thousands of building articles and recently again began wondering if the landmark categories are anything but subjective. I was just not sure what to do. The cleanest solution at this point may be to delete and listify. But I suspect that would have a lot of opposition. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:35, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Response: Thanks for your comments. You are right this discussion should have taken place on our talk pages first. Please forgive me but I am too worn out and getting a headache from all this to comment further. As I said above I really don't care anymore. This has been a terrible experience only 5 days into being a registered user being brought here for this. I noticed that someone has now nominated all these cats for renaming now. What a mess! Somebody please just tell me what to do. Do nothing and walk away. Finish what I was doing. There is nothing to listify. The

lists already exist. Ashamedant (talk

) 23:30, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, but as a new user you walked into a mine field without any warning. The names you selected for the categories triggered a normal response since category names are generally plural. Then there is the bigger issue about how subjective the inclusion criteria for landmarks is. Please don't walk away, we need dedicated contributors. However remember that many actions are based on consensus established over time. If the lists already exist, then that would argue for deletion of these categories. Don't view this as a negative over your contributions. View this as a learning experience. If you like, sit back and watch how this plays out. Of course you are free to comment if you want to continue in the discussion. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:55, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

I think I already put the argument "lists exist therefore the cats should be deleted" to rest when I pointed you to

project page) over and I won't comment further.Ashamedant (talk

) 00:54, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Help

OK confession time. I've made a cockup and don't know how to undo any problems it's caused. Following the move of Pondicherry → Puducherry as a result of the Requested moves process I set about moving the subcategories (and main category) at Category:Pondicherry to Category:Puducherry. It never occurred to me that the process was different to the article move policy of "be bold" (especially as it was unlikely to be controversial following the Requested move process decision) or indeed the process at Wikimedia Commons. This, of course, has left a number of empty categories (which I have placed in the corresponding subcategories of Category:Puducherry). Whilst I don't think there is going to be any argument over the basis of the Pondicherry → Puducherry move, as this would fit easily under the speedy renaming process described on the Project page, arising as it does from the requested move process, the empty categories need sorting, and the remainder of the categories at Category:Pondicherry need moving. Sorry about this, but can someone advise how to sort this mess out? Skinsmoke (talk) 06:15, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

It's never too late to start a CFD discussion. One benefit of the discussion process here is that, once agreement is reached on naming, articles will be recategorized through an automated process. --Orlady (talk) 21:10, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Many thanks for that. Have now listed. Skinsmoke (talk) 04:49, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

I created Category:Works titled –ana or –iana on 1 May 2011. It was always stable, and I did not watchlist it. Nor do I watchlist this page.

Now I discover, purely by accident, that it's been deleted.

I'm not protesting the deletion decision per se, mainly because the horse has bolted now. But I take issue with the process whereby the author of the thing in question was not made aware of the discussion.

Is there some protocol whereby the creators of pages or categories under possible threat of deletion should be made aware as a courtesy, so that they can at least add their voice, and possibly bring a perspective that might well sway the discussion? If an editor goes to the trouble of creating a category, then presumably he has something to say about why he did so. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 22:33, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, that was my fault; I forgot to notify you. (I have categories deleted all the time without being notified, which is notifying you didn't occur to me!) No offense was intended. Trivialist (talk) 14:42, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I must say it concerns me even more that you "have categories deleted all the time without being notified".

• Firstly, I've created well over 320 categories, but have only ever had about 4 questioned or deleted. We obviously approach this exercise in different ways.
• But more importantly, I get back to my opening point: is there a protocol whereby the creators of categories being considered for deletion must be informed? From your evidence, and now this latest episode, it appears not.

I think that's unacceptable. It's certainly a requirement for articles being considered for deletion that all major contributors and the originating editor be individually informed on their talk pages.

I see that category deleters are asked merely to "Consider adding a template to the main article's talk page or to categories that are merge targets to notify users that the category has been nominated for deletion or renaming". That works for editors who have these cats or articles on their watch lists, but not for those who don't. And since it's only something deleters should "consider", it's no wonder that it happens only sometimes (minimum standards of compliance and all that), and that people are being left out of the loop, who by rights should have been given a chance to have their say. This needs a rethink.

I'd like to propose:

• (a) that use of the template become mandatory, and
• (b) that it should be added not only to article's talk page or to categories that are merge targets, but also to the talk pages of the originating editor and any major contributors - exactly like in AfD.

If here isn't the right place, where would be better? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 03:07, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose proposal to make notification mandatory. Many times in the past when I have notified category creators about discussions, I have been (figuratively) yelled at for spam-bombing them. A simpler self-help solution (rather than adding another bureaucratic requirement) is to add the categories to your watch list if you care about it or want to be notified that it is up for discussion. If a user doesn't bother to do that, then there isn't much to complain about. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 04:01, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Some responses:

• What happened to one editor in the past should not dictate our standards and policies.
• I have a pretty big watchlist (about 8,500 currently, although I sometimes trim it down), and it includes very few of the categories I've created. I have an almost perfect retention rate, so I see little benefit in watching them all when almost all of them are never going to change.
• So far from what you say, the absence of any particular article, template, redirect or category from my watchlist does NOT mean that I don't care or that I don't want to be notified if they're being considered for deletion. Minor (or even major) amendments are one thing, but I trust you agree that outright deletion is a completely different ball game.
• If it's mandatory for AfD, why not for CfD? How can this inconsistency of approach be defended? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 04:50, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

(1) It wasn't just one editor, it was many. (2) You see little benefit, but one benefit would be that you are notified of discussions when they are started, a concern that led you to start this discussion in the first place. If you can help yourself, why not do it? It's your call, really, as to whether the cost of adding them to a watchlist is worth the benefit, but when a self-help remedy is available, I have little sympathy for editors who wish to place the burden onto other editors. (3) As above, if you care about anything enough to want to know when it's nominated for deletion, putting it on your watchlist is a good self-help remedy. (4) I don't think it should be mandatory for AFD either. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 23:07, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

And here we go again. Category:Foods named after people is about to be deleted, after a 5-day discussion. First I heard of it was just now, in this edit summary. Not good enough. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 08:48, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Use your watch list to watch stuff you care about. That's what it's for. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 23:04, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

G'day, having had to deal with recent incredible levels of disruption created by just one (now blocked) sockmaster User:Oldhouse2012 in respect of Vojvodina-related articles, I discovered that the same sockmaster had created a number of trees/series of categories to promote their ethnic-based POV regarding Vojvodina. I believe that the creation of categories by a blocked sock/sockmaster should be a criteria for speedy deletion. I haven't a lot of experience with categories, and would be interested in the views of editors with significant experience of such things. Is there a sensible case for such a criteria for speedy deletion? I certainly hope so. It'll take a month to clean up the mess at this rate. Regards, Peacemaker67 (send... over) 11:30, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Creation by a banned user is a criterion for speedy deletion, but not all blocked sockmasters are

WP:BANNED. --Orlady (talk

) 18:32, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

I guess you are referring to the categories created by socks such as User:Account2013. The ongoing discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 February 7#Ethnic categories related to Vojvodina should take care of them pretty quickly. If the sockmaster's activity continues for much longer, it would be appropriate to seek a community ban. --Orlady (talk) 18:43, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 00:41, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Why is User:Vegaswikian changing building categories to "Infrastructure" categories? Building are not "infrastructure". Roads, damns, bridges and tunnels and that sort of thing are infrastructure. They provide the structure which allows a city to survive. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:29, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

physical infrastructure seems to be what you are thinking of. Vegaswikian (talk

) 02:00, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Categories should be usable to our readers, and not some kind of esoteric b.s. only a pendant would appreciate. No reader is ever going to look under "Infrastructure" in order to find a building. You need to re-evaluate exactly what and who you are editing for, your own aggrandizement, or to add value for the reader. You should immediately stop changing "building" categories to "infrastructure" ones without a consensus to do so, and change back those you have already changed without a consensus. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:45, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree with BMK... "Buildings" is a much more obvious search term for such structures, so I don't think we should take the word "buildings" out of the category names. That said, buildings are a form of infrastructure (along side dams, tunnels, roads, etc)... so I think it would make sense to incorporate all the various "buildings" categories within a broader "Infrastructure" cat. I would also suggest we not apply this "Infastructure" category at the article page level ... but apply it at the category page level. Blueboar (talk) 18:49, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

That is an interesting view. Most of that has been classified directly as infrastructure could be placed in subcategories, probably less then 10 new categories, to retain a building related naming at the article level. I would also like to point out that in 100%, or close to 100% of the articles, they are still directly in the building tree. So it is not like these articles have been totally removed from that tree. So while in infrastructure by year, they are in building categories for their location, maybe one for historic classification and so on. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:37, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

If they are being added to infrastructure categories in addition to the building categories they are already in, I don't see a problem here. Has User:Beyond My Ken misinterpreted and understood that building categories were being replaced by infrastructure categories? Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 20:53, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

The articles are being moved from buildings and structures by year categories to infrastructure by year categories. Here's an example of a library being classified as infrastructure. - Eureka Lott 21:34, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Which also leaves the article directly in the buildings tree as a member of Category:Buildings and structures in Cleveland, Ohio. And in this case, if it is determined that there are sufficient libraries, we could categorize those by year and the parent would be infrastructure by year. This would appear to address the concern being raised. The question would be are there enough libraries to break them out by year? My gut says that we could justify that. At least from 1801 on. Also while being moved, it is not the same as being removed since the category in question has the building and structure by year as a parent. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:59, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

The concerns go beyond libraries. You can use a technical definition of infrastructure to defend categorizing police stations and barns and music venues as infrastructure instead of buildings, but it's no favor to our readers. Very few of them will expect to find them under infrastructure, and will not think to look there. - Eureka Lott 18:55, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

I think Eureka Lott has a point here. If we go to the main category, Category:Libraries is not a subcategory of Category:Infrastructure, but instead is a subcategory of Category:Buildings and structures by type. The pattern at the lower level, if it is to be diffused, should follow the pattern at the main category. Skinsmoke (talk) 07:46, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

However, Category:Buildings and structures by type would be a perfectly acceptable subcategory of Category:Infrastructure. I would not add the latter to an article on a library, but I would add it to the "Buildings and structures by type" category page. Blueboar (talk) 21:16, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

The other way round actually. As Category:Infrastructure is a subcategory of Category:Buildings and structures then it would be appropriate to move it down to be a subcategory of Category:Buildings and structures by type. However, that doesn't alter the fact that subcategories such as Category:Libraries would still not be part of Category:Infrastructure, which includes subcategories such as Category:Aqueducts, Category:Dams, Category:Freshwater pipelines, Category:Reservoirs, Category:Ferry terminals, Category:Streets and roads, Category:Tunnels, Category:Bridges, Category:Radio masts, Category:Submarine communications cables, Category:Communications satellites and Category:Sewage treatment plants. Skinsmoke (talk) 23:08, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Those items are all Category:Physical infrastructure which is a subset of Category:Infrastructure. Vegaswikian (talk) 01:17, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Some are, but not all. I deliberately looked in a number of the subcategories, not just one. Skinsmoke (talk) 16:43, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

I just saw that Cydebot moved/changed the former "Okanagan Country" on Feb 8 by CFDS; I'm OK with that, that was a pro tem name when Category:Geographic regions of British Columbia was come up with; it's an old usage; but this subject came up because of a region vs. regional district discussion (both cat and article) for Metro Vancouver vs the traditional (and still far more common) Greater Vancouver, i.e. the general issue of the names of BC region categories, which I see have been being harmonized with their main articles, e.g. the change from Chilcotin Country to Chilcotin District, which now needs revision because that capital-D is a problem; my proposed solution, in taht case for Okanagan and certain others, is to use "Okanagan (region)" and "Chilcotin" region. This is part of an emerging set of discussions in WPCANADA and WPBC etc about use and names of these categories; please put Cydebot on hold in this area (the CFDS at Metro VAncouver/Greater Vancouver Regional District was reversed by regular CfD within the last 48 hours). More changes will be coming; might as well wait until we have our system ready, rather than keep switching them....the problem with Okanagan is that there's Okanogan County, which comprises the American Okanogan [sic, their spelling] and to avoid confusion "Okanagan (British Columbia region)" might be necessary; "Canadian region" would not work well in that context for various reasons.Skookum1 (talk) 14:24, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Fictional_witches
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Fictional_wizards

These categories need to be renamed, into something like

• Fictional witches‎ and sorceresses
• Fictional wizards‎ and sorcerers

For I think rather obvious reasons. --

) 18:20, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Oh, and the underpopulated but redunant cats http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Fictional_sorcerers and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Fictional_warlocks merged into the latter (there's only "Fictional witches" for women). --

) 18:25, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

• talk
  ) 18:54, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Following-on from a discussion at the Village Pump, I'm planning an RfC regarding the

) 16:07, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Warnings for category tag removal

I have created a series of templates for warning editors who remove the CFD/CFM/CFR tags from categories. See

) 22:54, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Listify result

About a month ago a group of listify decisions were overridden to keep since no one was willing to take the time to convert the categories to a list. I believe that this action was wrong and that the categories should have been deleted instead.

To prevent this from happening in the future, if no work is done on the listification of the category, then anyone can post a notice on the talk pages of all of those who wanted the category kept or listified inviting them to create the lists. If there is no response, then the categories should be deleted and not kept. Vegaswikian (talk) 00:35, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Which decisions were overriden? Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 23:12, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I remember this from a while ago, but looking through the edit comments, I can't find it now. Vegaswikian (talk) 00:01, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree that when the result is "listify", deletion of the category is closer to the probable intent of the consensus than keeping it. So I support the proposed procedure. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 00:35, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Although I agree that deletion of a category better reflects a consensus to listify than keeping it, I disagree with the proposed procedure. There is

WP:CFD/W/M

for a few weeks or months.

What I would like to see, however, is more clarity in decisions to listify a category—specifically, identification of the list destination. For example, there is a big difference between "listify to List of redheads", "listify to Red hair#Notable people" and "listify to Talk:Red hair#Contents of Category:Redheads". -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 21:28, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm just bring this up here since I'm looking at just about every library article. In doing this I have noticed several issues as it relates to categorization. The buildings are for the most part in a building category when we have information about the building. However what remains is in someways an eclectic mix. For instance, we have actual libraries, where people go to go read books. We have collections of books, we have library systems, we have archives and we have virtual libraries and we have sections of libraries. This is effectively a collection of articles labeled library, or described as a library. I'm not convinced what if anything should be done. Since we have Category:Archives should all archives be there and not otherwise under Category:Libraries? Should we create Category:Library systems and if we do, should those systems continue to be listed as libraries in the category structure? These are mostly university and community named libraries. If we leave them in the existing categories, we can have cases where you have a system with 50 branches called a library listed along with a single building/library with a few thousand books. The two are very different. Then we the articles that use the Category:Libraries by year of establishment tree. You have a library there that was really established in say 1805. Moved several times and was renamed to honor various benefactors and maybe merged with other institutions. Finally in 1980 it gets a new building and new name. However it is now listed under Category:Libraries established in 1980 and not the probably correct Category:Libraries established in 1805. Since the Category:Libraries by year of establishment tree is thinly populated, I wonder if simply deleting to cleanup is the best option and allow recreation when it can be done correctly. Note that some entries are correct and I don't know how many are wrong. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:16, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Aren't you missing the fact that Category:Libraries is, in any case, a subcategory of Category:Archives? Surely, a library is a specific form of archive, and that would seem to be the correct order of things. This "collection of eclectic things" is not unusual when you get higher up the category tree, as words can have multiple meanings and uses.

There do seem to be problems with how Category:Libraries is categorised however. I can see no reason why it should be a subcategory of Category:Public services, Category:Cultural organizations, Category:Educational organizations or Category:Information storage. Category:Archives is already a subcategory of these categories, and, as Category:Libraries is a subcategory of Category:Archives, this is overcategorisation.

That would leave Category:Libraries as a subcategory of just Category:Buildings and structures by type and Category:Archives, which sounds about correct. However, there might be a case for creating a new Category:Library buildings, which would be a subcategory of Category:Libraries and Category:Buildings and structures by type. Once that was done, it would make sense to review the situation to see whether Category:Libraries still serves any purpose, or whether it should be merged into Category:Archives.

I suggest that years of establishment is dealt with as a different question, so as not to confuse the issue. Skinsmoke (talk) 12:23, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

At the time I raised this, I was lost in the bowels of the subcategories getting confused. I did drop Category:Public services since that is clearly not a proper parent. I think that your points on the other parent categories are also correct. After looking at probably thousands of library articles in many articles/categories you do find entries for the education tree for many of these. Likewise some are in culture trees. So like you say, those other parents probably can also be removed. Since most of these are not uniquely involved with information storage, that can also be dropped. Where that could apply would be to the subset of articles that provide archival services for libraries and archives and they should be directly categorized in that tree as appropriate.

There is an issue with other broad categorizations. Like Category:Types of library being included in Category:Types of organization since that also does not really apply. While many of the articles do talk about the organizations that run them, it is probably not appropriate to apply this to a type of library since at the top levels of Category:Libraries, we are pretty much talking about collections and buildings with the notable exception of Category:Library-related organizations‎.

Then there is the following as one example. We have Category:Archives in Japan with the parents of Category:Archives by country, Category:Organizations based in Japan, Category:Libraries in Japan, Category:Museums in Japan and Category:History of Japan. Clearly Category:Archives by country is correct, but museums, libraries and organizations? History may or may not be proper so I'd leave that alone for now. So there is probably more cleanup there.

I'm willing to let any decision on Category:Libraries itself wait so we can see what things look like after the archives get moved out and other cleanup happens. I don't see a need for Category:Library buildings at this time since we only have Category:Library buildings by year of completion‎ right now. If someone determines that we also need a Category:Library buildings by country‎, then yes, it would probably be needed.

So some cleanup is needed. The main one probably being that archives should not have a parent of libraries which itself has a parent of archives. Anyone want to take that on? Vegaswikian (talk) 07:27, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

You are certainly right on the last point. You opened up this whole can of worms, so stop trying to palm it off on somebody else. Sort it! (I am only joking, honest). Skinsmoke (talk) 12:27, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Yea, I have started doing a little bit of that while I'm still working on identifying and categorizing the buildings. With any luck I'm near the end of that unless I find another source for those. Also while there is no main article, I think I need to agree with you on the need for Category:Library buildings since we also have Category:Libraries by heritage register which probably needs a rename to Category:Library buildings by heritage register. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:56, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

It's just a hunch (and I could easily be wrong), but I suspect most articles on Libraries are really about Library buildings. We'll see. Skinsmoke (talk) 16:54, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Given that most library buildings are designed to be notable pieces of architecture, I would have agreed with you. However after skimming several thousand of these articles, most are probably not about buildings. The reason has to do with what a library is. In the end it is simply a collection. So a library can be a set of books or other items donated to an institution (want to donate your VCR tape collection?). Or a collection of books somewhere. An

Ox cart. A room. A floor in a building. A tax district. A library system... You get the idea. Even some of the larger articles concentrate on the collections and the history of the collections with, in some cases, very little about the building. As usual, the NRHP articles are about the buildings, commonly with little information. In Europe you get complex articles since many libraries have a long and rich history. Also there are number of these that have never existed in purpose built buildings. Try a search for library and house. Vegaswikian (talk

) 20:46, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

I'll accept your greater experience on libraries! Skinsmoke (talk) 21:48, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

The categories:

• Category:Alabama state parks‎ → Category:State parks of Alabama
• Category:Alaska state parks‎ → Category:State parks of Alaska
• etc → ?

and others in

) 22:06, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

I'll do it. Would I be correct in assuming that you also want to rename Category:State parks in the United States to Category:State parks of the United States? -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 00:35, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

✓ Done. See Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 February 25#Category:State parks in the United States. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 00:54, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

There is an RfC on the WP:Overcategorization talk page regarding categorization of persons. Editors are invited to provide input at the RfC --Noleander (talk) 18:08, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

I have decided to nominate the sub-categories of Category:19th-century fires and Category:20th-century fires for merger into their respective parent categories. There are 113 sub-categories in total, so I'd be grateful if someone here were to assist me with their tagging. Waltham, The Duke of 18:01, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Anyone? The instructions said I was to ask for help here. Waltham, The Duke of 22:20, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Asking for help does not infer that someone is willing to do so. Personally I'm trying to cleanup 3 different structures based on various feedback and that project is expanding and likely to take several months so I don't have the time. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:39, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

I was hoping for some sort of automation, which one would expect to be fairly quick (I am mostly script-illiterate, so I shouldn't know). If no tools exist to do the job, I suppose I'll just have to increase my edit count a bit faster than what it is accustomed to... Waltham, The Duke of 10:45, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

I see no reason why

WP:AWB couldn't be used to add the nominations, although it won't help you generate the actual edit to WP:CFD/Log/(current date). — Arthur Rubin (talk)

19:57, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Editing 100+ pages was far more work than copying a line 100+ times in one page and just changing a number in every instance (I went ahead and made the nomination on 27 February); it took me over two hours, though I spent some of this time learning interesting facts about fires through pop-ups. At any event, thank you for the suggestion, which I'll keep in mind in case I find myself in the mood for mass nominations again. Waltham, The Duke of 17:20, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

I've recently come across editors from two topic-based WikiProjects complaining that their project was not notified of CfDs, even though these were on their project's Alerts page.

In case any editors here are not aware, notifying WikiProjects of categories/articles for deletion is automated. It seems to have come into effect on a rolling basis from 2008 to 2011. The Article Alerts page for each WikiProject is updated by bots, based on the projects listed on the nominated article/category's talk page. Editors therefore need to add the Alerts page for their project to their watchlist. The relevant pages are in Category:Article alert reports via banner subscription.

I don't remember reading a notification about this on the WikiProjects that I belong to, although I may have missed it. It seems to me that it would be well worthwhile sending a message to the talk page of every project/task force corresponding to the pages in the above category, explaining the mechanism and suggesting that editors add the relevant alerts page to their watchlist.

Where should we ask for this to be done? – Fayenatic London 19:12, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

I couldn't find the discussion to move a number of pages I created and spent considerable time building and categorising as the create. Some examples.

Category:National members of the International Federation of Volleyball to Category:National members of the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball

Category:International Fencing Federation to Category:Fédération Internationale d'Escrime

Category:National federations of the International Fencing Federation to Category:National federations of the Fédération Internationale d'Escrime

While for example changing to be stylising inline with wikipolices such as "National Members" to "National members" is fine I find the moves quite annoying as they basically mean they are now on names I can't type easily on my normal English Keyboard and the changes do not improve wikipedia ENGLISH version. In addition non of the associated template have been updated. How do I raise this and howdo I get it changed back and find out the user that made the changes to discuss it with them before doing this? Any advise would be appreciated from more experienced editors

10:39, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Note. The above comment was left at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 February 27; I just moved it here. – Fayenatic London 12:40, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

This may be just a matter of timing. Admins should create category redirect pages when the new name includes non-keyboard characters; these are now set up. Also, admins should check former categories for backlinks before removing them from the working list. I hope this resolves your main objections.

You can see the nominations and the rationales for them here: [1] They were done to make the categories match the lead articles e.g. Fédération Internationale d'Escrime.

Category redirects are helpful because if you put a page into such a category, a bot will move it to the target category. Also, if you use

WP:HOTCAT to add/change categories on articles, you can choose the old (redirected) name, and HOTCAT will substitute the target name. – Fayenatic London

12:57, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

late nomination of subcategories and relists

Looking at the nomination of Category:Populated places in the United States with Hispanic majority populations for deletion, I noticed that the nominator requested a bot to tag the subcategories. At this late date (over 6 days after the original nomination), I was going to tag the subcategories, but I think I would need to make a procedural relist to avoid any problems. Does that seem reasonable? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:30, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

I would like to invite comment on the best procedure for documenting the outcomes of category discussions.

Currently, the

}}, on the category's talk page only if the category page is not deleted (i.e., an outcome of keep, no consensus, redirect or disambiguate). However, if the category page is deleted for any reason (i.e., an outcome of merge, rename, delete or convert to [article/list/other]), then the outcome is not documented.

This can, and does, result in inconsistent record-keeping. For example, let's consider the following hypothetical example:

• In 2009, Category:Fooian Bars is nominated for renaming to Category:Fooian-Bar people, and is kept. The outcome is documented on the talk page.
• In 2010, Category:Fooian Bars is nominated for renaming to Category:Fooian-Bar people, and is renamed. The outcome is not documented on the talk page, but the talk page is moved to Category talk:Fooian-Bar people.
• In 2012, Category:Fooian-Bar people is listed for speedy renaming to Category:Bar people of Fooian descent, and is renamed because naming standards changed since 2010. The change is not documented on the talk page, but the talk page is moved to Category talk:Bar people of Fooian descent.
• In 2013, Category:Bar people of Fooian descent is nominated for renaming to Category:Fooian-Bar people, and is kept. The outcome is documented on the talk page.

Taking into account the category's whole history, what has transpired is that Category:Fooian Bars has become Category:Bar people of Fooian descent. However, the category's talk page reflects only two nominations to rename the category, both of which ended in a consensus to keep. This is, of course, highly misleading.

Therefore, I think that we ought to:

1. Require and implement more rigorous (and, unfortunately, more time-consuming) tracking of changes on category talk pages, including documenting all discussion outcomes, so that the tracking which takes place is actually useful; or
2. Abandon the use of {{
   Cfdend}} and {{Old CfD}}, and delete them, and rely instead on a category's edit history, Special:WhatLinksHere, and searching old logs (e.g., see the search box at the top of this page
   ) to discover previous discussions.

I think that either choice is better than our current process, which is an inferior and inefficient middle-ground. Thoughts? -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 01:56, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

If we can get CydeBot to add a record of moves or merges, using a template along the lines of the article talkspace template {{Merged-from}}, it would be useful.

There is also a bot working page

WP:CFD/W/R

, still being debugged AFAIK, where we can get the bot to remove CFD notices after a Keep or no-consensus decision. Perhaps the bot could also document the decision on the talk page.

Otherwise, I'm more inclined to carry on muddling through than to drop the half-way requirement which we have at the moment. – Fayenatic London 14:47, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure if Cydebot, or any bot, is well-equipped to handle that type of operation. Category moves and merges can involve several processes – an individual nomination, a group nomination, a speedy listing, a relisted (individual or group) nomination, a template-populated category where no pages are actually moved by the bot, and so on – and a bot would be hard-pressed to take all of them into account.

The activity at

WP:CFD/W/R actually illustrates quite well how spotty our record-keeping is. Since the bot automatically untags categories, even keep outcomes are not being fully documented. -- Black Falcon ^(talk

) 02:07, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

I would strong oppose any abandonment of {{

}}. They are not as widely-used as they should be, but some documentation is better than none. I'd support an extension of their use, and it would be great if the bots could do this. Surely it would not be hard for Cydebot to leave a note on a category's talk page?

I have long thought that the big hole in the audit trail is the speedy renaming process. In theory it's possible to burrow through the page's archives, but that's a pain-in-the-neck to do.

The number of speedy renamings now dwarfs the number of categories moved after discussion, but this huge volume is effectively undocumented. It's not simply missing from the category talk pages; it's not recorded anywhere on the current revision of a page.

I think that this would be relatively simply resolved, by either:

1. switching CFD/S over to a daily log system, or
2. Setting up a system where the closing admin doesn't simply delete CFD/S entries moved to processing, but pastes them into a log page.

The second option would be quite easily implemented. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:10, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Is "some documentation" really "better than none" when the documentation that takes place captures only a miniscule portion of the total? I have no data (yet) to support my claim, but I feel comfortable in asserting that less than 1% of category nominations are documented on the talk page. It would be great, I think, if Cydebot or another bot could take over this task, but I'm just not sure how plausible that is.

Retaining a record of processed CFD/S entries might be a positive step, and a simple one to implement, but it addresses only a part of the problem. In addition, although a log of CFD/S actions would serve as documentation, it would not be very user-friendly due to the sheer volume of speedy nominations and the fact that users would be forced to hunt for documentation through incoming links and archives of processed moves. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 02:19, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

I would strongly support having the bot automatically place {{Old CfD}} on the talk page of any category that is moved or merged. Even if in version 1, it only handled single renames, this would be sufficient. This template is not used enough.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:19, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

I have put in a nomination here to rename all of the by-year categories which currently are subcategories of Category:Events_in_the_Thirteen_Colonies to Category:Events in the British colonies of North America. Can someone here please help me to mass-tag all of the 150+ articles? There one per year from 1607 to 1775, plus 18 decade ones, and two centuries. Thankfully, most of the "Disestablishment" categories haven't been created yet. Thank you!! JRP (talk) 22:03, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Can someone explain why we can't just rename categories, instead of deleting and recreating at a new name? I'm sure there's some reason, but I wonder if it is impossible for MediaWiki to implement or they just haven't gotten around to it.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:21, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

I will not in any way claim to know, but the mechanics are not trivial. The first step would be a rename, just like an article. That is simple. The next step would be to edit all of the articles that directly include the category and then rename those. The last step would be to edit any template that includes the category and then modify the template code to generate the new category. I'm sure that there is at least one more step I'm forgetting. The last one would be rather difficult to implement in the software. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:41, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Understood - and it would be reasonable and understandable that other edits need to take place - in the same way you need to make such edits manually when you change the name of an article. But the question remains, why can the software not simply rename the category page - even if doing so might break things? The loss of history is terrible, I wish we could avoid it - so even if all the other steps remain manual, at least doing that first step would allow us to keep the history.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:56, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

After a category is deleted, its page history is still visible to administrators, and thus potentially recoverable, the same as for a deleted article. There isn't any log of the pages that used to be in a particular category, however -- not even for categories that still exist. --Orlady (talk) 21:29, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Sure, that makes sense. I just think it would be nice if the actual edit history - who created it, when, and then if renamed/moved, was present - otherwise categories are sort of forgotten, unless people remember to link to previous discussions/moves/etc. Just curious why mediawiki is set up this way - I may go ask the developers over there... --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 21:33, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

It is attached to no real page other than User:Sunciviclee, who is a newcomer, the title relates to an edit war on Adrian Dix and has involved attacks on myself (including an outing by a SPA on Sunciviclee's talkpage). Category:Adrian Dix WikiWars is the category ,what purpose it serves I don't know. But it doesn't belong in Wikipedia.Skookum1 (talk) 00:06, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

I originally intended to post my questions here but got somewhat turned around and ended up asking them at Wikipedia talk:Category names §Seeking input regarding ... Lua-based citation templates. There has been a dreadful silence there so I've come here to see if editors frequenting CfD have opinions. Do you? What are they?

Thanks

—Trappist the monk (talk) 09:52, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't think too many of us follow that page. Maybe moving the discussion here would be better. I will say that I did a quick read of that and I'm not sure what is going on. But I did not spend much time trying to understand it. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:40, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, moved it here:

because I misspelled |accessdate=:

Cite web comparison

Wikitext	{{cite web|accesdate=2013-04-11|no-tracking=true|title=Examples of the new vs. the old|url=http://www.example.com|website=[[Internet Assigned Numbers Authority|IANA]] Example Domain}}
Live	"Examples of the new vs. the old". IANA Example Domain. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accesdate= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
Sandbox	"Examples of the new vs. the old". IANA Example Domain. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accesdate= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)

Visible error messages reported by the Lua-base citations are currently disabled. When enabled, the Lua version of the citation above will report the misspelled |accessdate= error as Unknown parameter |accesdate= ignored (|accessdate= suggested) (help)

I am considering the names of these categories and have proposed some changes. Others have suggested that a note here is in order.

Right now the categories that CS1 uses are included in Category:Articles with incorrect citation syntax. This category has been used in the past to catch errors detected by the old-style citation templates and {{citation error}}. It seems best to me to have a separate CS1 messaging category that will contain nothing but subcategories used by CS1 – keep the old away from the new.

So, I propose a new category for CS1 messaging: Category:CS1 errors and messages or, maybe, Category:CS1 messaging. Within that there could be separate subcategories for messages and errors or, since there are relatively few error-message categories, perhaps it would be better to simply give all of the subcategories names that clearly identify them as error categories or as message categories. Individual pages do not get categorized into the CS1 messaging category but must be categorized into one of the error or message subcategories.

Here is a list of the current error categories, proposed replacement names and their associated error messages that clearly identify the categories as error categories. If a decision is made to have separate error and message subcategories, then the proposed error categories might all drop the "errors" word that ends the category names – or not. The names were chosen to be terse and to the point. On each category page there is help text transcluded from the CS1 error help page that describes the meanings of the error messages and repair recommendations. I suspect that it will be the rare individual who will be seeking out these category pages.

Proposed renaming of error-tracking categories used by Module:Citation/CS1

From	To	Related error message(s)
Category:Pages using citations with accessdate and no URL	Category:CS1 errors: accessdate without url	|accessdate= requires |url=
Category:Pages using citations with format and no URL‎	Category:CS1 errors: format without url	|format= requires |url=
Category:Pages using citations with old-style implicit et al.	Category:CS1 errors: implicit et al	|displayauthors= suggested |displayeditors= suggested
Category:Pages using web citations with no title	Category:CS1 cite-web-missing-title errors	Missing or empty |title=
Category:Pages using web citations with no URL‎	Category:CS1 errors: cite web missing url	Missing or empty |url=
Category:Pages with archiveurl citation errors‎	Category:CS1 errors: archiveurl	|archiveurl= and |deadurl=no requires |url= |archiveurl= requires |archivedate= |archiveurl= requires |url=
Category:Pages with citations having bare URLs‎	Category:CS1 errors: bare-url	Missing or empty |title=
Category:Pages with citations having wikilinks embedded in URL titles‎	Category:CS1 errors: wikilink in title	Wikilink embedded in URL title
Category:Pages with citations lacking titles‎	Category:CS1 errors: missing title	Missing or empty |title=
Category:Pages with citations using conflicting page specifications‎	Category:CS1 errors: page specification	Extra |pages or |at
Category:Pages with citations using translated terms without the original‎	Category:CS1 errors: translated term	|trans-chapter requires |chapter= |trans-title requires |title=
Category:Pages with citations using unsupported parameters‎	Category:CS1 errors: unknown parameter	Unknown parameter ????= ignored Unknown parameter |xxxx= ignored (|yyyy= suggested)
Category:Pages with citations using unnamed parameters‎	Category:CS1 errors: unnamed parameter	Text "????" ignored
Category:Pages with empty citations‎	Category:CS1 errors: empty citation	Empty citation
Category:Pages with citations having redundant parameters	Category:CS1 errors: redundant parameter	More than one of |param1=, |param2=, and |param3=

I want to do this once and I want it to be done right. This is my first time playing with categories.

Are these proposed names acceptable? Does my plan make sense? What is the best way to migrate from the current to the proposed? What else do I need to know that I don't know enough to ask about?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:04, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Let me start by saying I'm not familiar with the change so that may explain some of my confusion. Category names should make the contents clear. So just looking at the first one in the table, Category:Pages using citations with accessdate and no URL v Category:CS1 accessdate without url errors I have questions/comments based solely on the names.

Category:Pages using citations with accessdate and no URL sounds like it includes pages with citations that include an access date and there is no website provided in the citation, a reasonable error that needs fixing. The proposed Category:CS1 accessdate without url errors sounds like we have something, not just a citation, that has a good website link for the access date, a confusing piece of information if this is intended to find problems.

One other question. How long will the transition of these templates take? If not very long, then do we really need to change the names or can we simply reparent to Category:CS1 errors and messages or, Category:CS1 messaging when the switch is flipped? Vegaswikian (talk) 19:29, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

I haven't done a very good job of explaining. I've tweaked my explanation above to include the error message reported by the example citation and added the associated error messages to the table. When I chose the proposed CS1 error-tracking category names I wanted the names to roughly approximate the error messages that the category would track. Because the error messages are necessarily terse, each error message has a help link to explanatory text in Help:CS1 errors. That same text is transcluded into the associated tracking-category page so that a reader who somehow lands at a CS1 error-tracking category page can know what the category contains. Because these categories are hidden and not intended for general public consumption, terse names seem appropriate.

I started down this path because the existing category page-names are cumbersome and don't read easily and they all begin with "Pages using" or "Pages with". Since all categories contain pages, no need to state the obvious. Take out "Pages using" and Category:Pages using citations with accessdate and no URL becomes Category:citations with accessdate and no URL. But, there are at least three commonly used citation styles here: Help:Citation Style 1 (CS1), Help:Citation Style 2 (CS2), and Help:Citation Style Vancouver. Change "citation" to CS1 and we get Category:CS1 with accessdate and no URL. You can see how I converged on Category:CS1 accessdate without url errors.

I can see how you might read "accessdate without url errors" to mean that there are no url errors. Perhaps this: "CS1 accessdate-without-url errors". Hyphens are allowed in category names aren't they?

Don't know how to answer your transition time question because I'm not clear what you are asking. Of the twenty three or so old-style CS1 templates, five or six have been converted to Lua and are alive and in use. If you look in any of the categories in the table above, you will see that they're all populated with pages that have CS1 errors.

I don't know what you mean by reparenting but I presume that you mean changing the Category:Articles with incorrect citation syntax line at the bottom of each of the error-tracking categories to Category:CS1 errors and messages or Category:CS1 messaging or Category:CS1 error tracking. We will do that. I still want to change the error-tracking category names which is the primary purpose of this request for input.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:57, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks you. Your request does raise some interesting questions. I'll wait for other comments. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:04, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

I have hyphenated the category names in the table to, I hope, reduce ambiguity.

Repeating the questions that are the purpose of this discussion (I've found that conversations will range far and wide when they really ought not):

Are these proposed names acceptable? Does my plan make sense? What is the best way to migrate from the current to the proposed? What else do I need to know that I don't know enough to ask about?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:47, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Updated table to reflect deprecated error messages and categories.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:48, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Since no one else has elected to comment... If I read the first item in the table, the category name seems to be unclear as to its purpose. I think this is flagging the fact that the url was not provided when other parameters indicate that the url was required. If this is correct, then 3 of the first 4 could be simply collapsed into Category:CS1 errors, URL missing. I'm not sure that how it was detected is important since the url needs to be provided and anyone can do that without needing to know why. Also Category:CS1 unknown-parameter errors could be more clearly be stated as Category:CS1 errors, invalid parameter (I think I understand this one since I fixed one today from the red in the text of the article). Also, if these are truly maintenance categories, then I would expect a future rename request to reflect this. To avoid that, you should probably consider the form Category:Wikipedia CS1 errors-.... Vegaswikian (talk) 02:10, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I had set today as the give-up-on-this-thread-day.

You are correct that it's possible to combine several of the categories because they have some similarities. Doing that however, makes the categorization less useful if you are looking to see how individual citation parameters are used or misused.

Education. Knowing why a citation is malformed helps to prevent future malformed citations.

True, Category:CS1 errors, invalid parameter could work. It might be better to reserve invalid parameters for future use in reporting proper parameters that are misapplied – something we aren't currently doing.

Can category names contain a colon (:)? Could the category names be something like: Category:CS1 errors: unknown parameter? The colon seems to be more correct than the comma. Could use ndash but then I think that we'd have to create hyphen-in-lieu-of-ndash redirects because keyboards don't have the ndash key.

Yes, these truly are maintenance categories. Why would you expect a future rename? What are we avoiding by using a Category:Wikipedia CS1 errors-...-type name?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:10, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Re the last question on renaming. There is a growing trend to not name categories in a way that makes them appear to be a part of the encyclopedia. So you see names like

Wikipedia category

}} as an admin category.

I think that category names can include a colon, but I could be wrong. However I suspect that our bots would have issues. So if there is another choice I would use that. BTW I tried to create Category:Test one: of 1 and it seemed to work, but it was really not there, so maybe that colon is really not supported.

Toolserver like tools should really be used to understand the details on how this stuff is used. I believe that we just killed a bunch of {{convert}} categories as improper use of the category space. The template was inserting as many as 5 categories from what I personally ran into. I suspect that the same could happen here. I wish you had more input as a guide. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:09, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, there's good information there. I've discovered that there is a {{Tracking category|container=yes}} template which is more appropriate than the simple {{hidden category}} template that we're currently using, which all in one fell swoop even designates the top level category as a container category. So there is a start.

Ok, colons are right out. I'm still thinking about individual category names. Perhaps for the top level container category: Category:Citation style 1 error tracking.

My understanding of the {{convert}} kerfuffle is that the introduction of categories into the very complex template system that is {{convert}} broke a lot of transclusions all over Wikipedia. They ended up reverting all or most of the category additions. Fortunately, Citation Style 1 shouldn't suffer that ignominy because it is being designed to catch, report, and categorize errors as it is being implemented. Thus far, with five or six of the twenty-three citation styles using the new citation engine, that prediction is holding true.

Yeah, I too would like more community participation (if you're out there feel free to participate). Thank you for taking the time to help.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:06, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, I asked the help desk about

WP:NCTR, confirmed that category names are simply page names so the same restrictions apply, and even provided an example of a category that includes a colon in its name (Category:Avatar: The Last Airbender

). So, I've changed the proposed CS1 error-category names. See what you think.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:44, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Category:Late-2000s financial crisis to Category:Great Recession. C2D, per Great Recession, article title was changed after major discussion last November-December. 86.40.203.93 (talk) 19:29, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

This category changed was based on C2D, but

) 01:23, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

I think you are right, but it could best be resolved by setting up a sub-category, and a corresponding one for films, then moving articles selectively; for example, The Recess Ends seems to be about the recession rather than the crisis, and should stay where it is. – Fayenatic London 20:07, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

19:55, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Sports festivals versus sports competitions

Hello.

Looking for the best place to post this discussion, as it needs to be centralized. I have posted it at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sports too.

I'm thinking of the big – hence the location for this discussion – category trees Category:Sports festivals by country and Category:Sports competitions by country. What's the difference, really? What says that sports festivals are to be subcategories of sports competitions, which is the current situation?

Merge?

HandsomeFella (talk) 15:41, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Looking though the two categories, I would assume the difference to be: a "Sports festival" involved multiple sports, while a "Sports competition" involves only one sport. Blueboar (talk) 21:31, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

I believe the difference is that sports competitions is just events focused solely on a sport/sports. Whereas sports festivals include more than just the sports such as cultural activities and well festivals, hence the name. The Olympics are an example of a sports festival. I believe also that sports festivals are one offs whereas in wikiland sports competitions are usually sports leagues. But looking at the categories that has been blurred somewhat. -DJSasso (talk) 18:04, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

I believe that "sports festival" has no clear meaning, and is therefore not useful for categories. I propose that single-sport events should be moved from all categories of sports festivals into sports competitions, and then "sports festivals" should be merged/renamed to multi-sport events. – Fayenatic London 19:51, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

In fact, I see that I started this at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2011_August_24#Sports_festivals_by_country, but as I failed to follow-up with the remaining country categories, the renames were put back at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2011_October_25#Category:Multi-sport_events_by_country. – Fayenatic London 19:57, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Given that CfD is not watched by most editors, and given the immense amount of controversy that decisions here are capable of generating, and given the fact that decisions made here are then enforced on article pages by editors who will not discuss the issues because they've already been decided here, and given the last month of edit-wars on articles that decisions here have generated, perhaps it would be well to consider better ways of notifying editors that categories have appeared here for discussion. I propose that the best thing to do would be to have a bot drop a notification on every single page in the category that's up for discussion so that all editors who watchlist the potentially affected articles will be notified. Thoughts?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 00:08, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

I like the way you're thinking but I think this takes it a step too far. Instead, automatic notification of any relevant projects listed on the category page, and perhaps additional notification to projects listed on a sample of 20 articles in the category itself, should be done. Note that in many cases, cats are not deleted, they are just renamed, so notifying 3000 articles just because someone wants to Add a hyphen or reword in some other way seems a bit too much. I've also noticed that, esp before category gate, most pure article editors really don't care - several times I've notified particular articles that I know had a lot of watchers, and people almost never come over to CFD. Perhaps in a post-category gate world this might be different. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 00:29, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

I raised this same issue

back in January, but I received very short shrift. Subject to the sorts of considerations raised by Obi-Wan Kenobi, I support your new proposal, but won't be holding my breath for a generally positive response. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk]

00:41, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi Jack - it seems your question is a bit different, which is whether the _creator_ of a category should be notified. I for one agree with you, and I use twinkle, which does this automatically. If I didn't have twinkle, I'd probably forget to do so. So I would certainly support consensus to have a bot, after nomination, go and notify the creator, the relevant projects, and so on. I do note that, if a category is renamed, then you will no longer be listed as the creator, so the watchlist still comes in handy. This is just the way the software works, unfortunately. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 01:59, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm open to refinements to the proposal. We can exclude renames, of course. Probably even category deletions aren't controversial. But for decisions about which categories are to be diffusing or non-diffusing, or about rules that constrain what can be put in a category, I think it's not too much to ask to notify 3000 articles if it will avoid the kind of pain this mess is causing.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 01:22, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

99% of discussions at CFD are renames, deletions, or merges. Very few are about "ok, here are some cats, I want to keep them as is, I just want to change membership rules for them" - so this case you've run into is a bit of an odd-ball. Also, FWIW, renames, deletes, and merges can be VERY controversial. Just look at the american women novelists CFD. It was book-length. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 02:01, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Here's a short version of what I'd like to see: "If a proposed change is going to lead to drive-by category removals where the response to a reversion is 'You have to take it to CfD' then every article in the category should get a notification on the talk page."— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 02:05, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Again though a lot of those arise mid discussion - American women novelists was proposed for a straight merger rather than a change to the rules. The Bias categories were a very rare case when the discussion was initiated with the aim of getting a binding inclusion/exclusion criteria rather than a counter proposal to a deletion or merger. Timrollpickering (talk) 02:31, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Firstly with projects we already have a system of Wikipedia:Article alerts. Each day that automatically scans the CFDs (and everything else) and updates the relevant project notification pages. If projects choose not to use it and/or fail to tag the categories then frankly they can't expect notification. If often feel the manual notifications on project talkpages are rather spammy, and if we did notify manually notify for every single proposed change they'd overwhelm the talkpages to the point of ineffectiveness. Here we should be encouraging projects to opt in more to the alerts system and to actually tag the categories.
I'm afraid that if you try automatically notifiying every single article talkpage you'll probably get the same effect of endless notifications rapidly expanding the talkpages and swamping out the more specific discussions.
I'm not entirely sure how many discussions you're referring to and often decisions of diffusing and non-diffusing tend to arise in the course of merger discussions (and annoyingly it's often the merger target rather than the nominated catgory that gets suggested) rather than at the outset. Could you provide some specific examples of the type you'd go for from recent CFDs? Timrollpickering (talk) 02:11, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Antisemitism in country X and Country X-ian novelists. Blaming the article editors by saying that projects fail to tag categories is the wrong approach. See what pain it's led to? By their fruits you shall know them. The current system does not work.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 02:20, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Alf is referring to current discussion here Category_talk:Antisemitism_in_the_United_States, which came out of a discussion you closed here Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2011_February_9#Bias_categories - there is debate, for example, on whether it was intended to apply to the country-level sub-cats, or just the parent (the parent was tagged with "no bios allowed", but not the children categories). Please join [[here to answer... :)--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 02:26, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

(@alf laylah wa laylah) That was in response to the proposal for project notification when we already have a system. When it comes to project notification then it is not unreasonable to expect members of a project to tag articles and categories to indicate interest. No system of requiring relevant project notification, whether automatic or manual, is workable without that. It's also down to projects to decide whether or not to make use of the existing aparatus for receiving notification - it's their decision if they wish to be notified or not.
There will be pain somehow but one of the cases you bring up relates to a discussion nearly two and a half years ago but also was an explicit decision to take a global approach which by definition cannot be overturned by an individual discussion on an individual category. In that case you'd need to ask for a rethink on whether a binding global approach should be in force and that can be taken via a new discussion.
I'm genuinely unsure how useful an automatic notification system on article talkpages would be - often notifications get ignored and it may just created a different category of pain - "You were informed at the time". And it would do nothing in cases where articles are not yet included in the category - how many of the current contentious cases ae actually about removing an article that was included at the time of the CFD as opposed to adding post discussion? Timrollpickering (talk) 16:47, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, but this mechanical, we don't really care approach, completely substantiates the reasons I no longer wish to be part of this project until a better means is found of alerting editors who write and tend articles that their work basically is crap based on some decision made in some back room with some editors who have no interest in inviting in others. I was writing

talk

) 17:58, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

That's not how I interpret what he's saying. If a project can't be bothered to tag an article or a category as being within it's scope, then it should not expect a notification when something related to that scope is discussed. W.r.t. the particular discussion on 'bias' categories, the Judaism project *was* notified Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Judaism/Archive_26#Category_discussion, I'm not sure who else was. Also, I really don't understand why presence or absence in a category has anything to do with whether one's work is crap or not. Not to go all Godwin on you, but Hitler was not only antisemitic, he was also racist and anti-homosexual and anti-gypsy and anti a whole lot of other things, but we don't place him in Category:Racism or Category:Homophobia, because of that decision made in 2011. It does not reflect at all on scholarship of the antisemitism of X, please don't interpret it in that way.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:11, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Well here's the problem: I do take things personally. But beyond that, asking for notification is a small thing and should at least get a nod of the head, a small bit of "yeah, that's something we might consider to improve collaborations." Instead we're told to be part of the conversations and to place on watch all the category pages of all the pages we work on - to which I simply have no response. Here's the problem as I see it: some of us spend a great deal of time, effort and frankly money, to write content for this project, only then to be subjected to weeks and weeks of "discussions" about things like infoboxes, templates and categories. I've said this before and will say it here: I don't come here to spend my time sitting around talking about stuff - my skill is to build content and whenever that's interrupted, as it has with the categorization issues that have recently cropped up, then I realize that WP really isn't at all about building content. That to me is hugely depressing.

talk

) 18:23, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

different strokes for different folks - you (obviously) don't have to be involved at all in categorization discussions, many people are blissfully unaware of the special craziness that is CFD. I am sympathetic to finding ways to better notify editors, but I do agree with Tim as stated above that spamming article talk pages is not the way to do it. If we have auto-notification of all the related wiki-projects, and perhaps notification on the 5 most-recently edited articles, would that suffice? It still means you need to tag articles with the right wikiproject. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 22:25, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

For some reason I'm usually aware of when templates are up for discussion but don't know the mechanism that's used for those. Bottom line is to let go here and realize it's all an exercise in futility. Clearly collaboration isn't important.

talk

) 22:34, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

" Clearly collaboration isn't important. " Seriously? People are trying to find a solution here, throwing out ideas, etc, and you just say "collaboration isn't important". It's not fair to say that. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 22:46, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Truthkeeper, I'm very much in sympathy with your position. Very much so. But I think it might be useful to take a step back and realise that these discussions are not Wikipedia. The project is FAR larger than the "special craziness" that goes on here; CfD is just one tiny aspect of it. Please don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Collaboration is the life blood of this place; I know sometimes it feels like it's not, but it really is. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 22:52, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks but I've come away with a very big lesson here - though it's taken me a month to learn. When building content an editor can chose which citation style he/she wants, whether or not to add an infobox, which images to use as long as they're free, generally build from the bottom up. But, particularly in the area of American literature, an editor has no control over the categories added to the article, even if he/she is intimately familiar with the content. In some skins the categories render before the text and I'm a bit of a perfectionist, I don't like putting false information on the internet, particularly from a website as prominent as this. If a poet who is notable not only for his poetry but for his self-identified anti-semitism isn't an anti-semite, and if arguably one on the best American novelists of the 20th century has his entire canon reduced to war novels - then I don't want to be part of this. At least not for a while. I understand now that categories and content aren't supposed to have a relationship on wikipedia. Strangely, I thought otherwise.

talk

) 23:45, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

(a) Right now, Ezra Pound is in Category:Antisemitism in the United States, but there's a dispute about what belongs in the category and what doesn't. (b) You also have to remember there's a thing called WP:Consensus, which is the counterpart of collaboration. If there's been a full discussion on an issue, and all comers were invited to state their positions, and the consensus is X, that's pretty much it. If you can't accept the consensus, then you're at odds with a founding principle of this entire project. Unless you can show that the process was flawed in some way and needs to be revisited. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 00:41, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Back in January (see above) I raised a question of principle, which received one response from Good Ol'factory that was no response at all. The issue is: If it's Mandatory with a Capital M for all affected editors to be notified in relation to

WP:AfD discussions, why is it not also Mandatory for CfD? How can this inconsistency of approach be defended? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk]

22:52, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

That's not my reading of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion#After nominating: Notify interested projects and editors. It encourages it but doesn't mandate it:

While it is sufficient to list an article for discussion at AfD... While not required, it is generally considered courteous to notify the good-faith creator and any main contributors of the articles that you are nominating for deletion. (My emphasis)

It's encouraged but not actually mandated for AFD.

One of the substantial problems is that it's very difficult to track the orignal creator when a category's been renamed, especially more than once. There is a software provision that transfers forward watches to a renamed category when the bot does it (but it gets messy with merges or when well meaning editors manually create the target) but otherwise it's often difficult to connect the line back. Timrollpickering (talk) 23:13, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for that. Funny, I could have sworn a banner pops up that has the word MUST in caps and bold. I must be thinking of some other process. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 00:46, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

• I have always assumed it is because article creators have to add actual content. On the other hand, I have created categories by finding them as red links and going and creating them by adding one category to the page. The amount of effort involved in creating categories is a lot less. As it is, the amount of effort to nominate an article for deletion is very high, but since there are various things that make it harder to create article they probably balance out.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:17, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Just to note that there's currently a backlog of CfDs waiting to be closed. --Dweller (talk) 13:08, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Is CfD still functioning? It appears that people still participate but that discussions never close. It's amazing that we are about to hit the two-month mark in terms of backlog. Alansohn (talk) 03:59, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

A good six or so of those, on May 3 and May 4, are ones I nominated and have become contentious to the point where a cruising admin may either think "TLNDR" or be stuck because of all the arguments/evidence.......maybe need arbitration, dunno. To me the evidence for my proposed changes is compelling and there is none in response that holds any weight for various reasons. One from April 23, re

Tsilhqot'in is still ongoing.......the May 3 and May 4 cats hinge, it seems, on what happens at the various RMs, which are also stalemated, or might seem to be, despite the same evidence vs. non-evidence re the CfDs....but to me are clear-cut and like the backlog here, waiting for closure......Skookum1 (talk

) 04:17, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Actually some of the early May ones you should have waited until after the related articles were renamed before nominating.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:05, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

This has come up in the various RMs and CFDs mentioned in the previous section; today someone pointed out

) 04:26, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

I know this isn't really the question, but as long as we are discussing... could we use a different word than "native"... a "native Alaskan" can be anyone born in the state of Alaska, no matter their ethnic heritage. While I know it would not really be applicable to Alaska, Canadians use the handy term "First Nation" to clarify just this point. Blueboar (talk) 14:14, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

The problem here is with the use of the word people as a plural of person. That's fine in almost all English registers, but it's a problem in very precise and formal contexts like an encyclopedia.

The true,

unmarked

plural of person is persons, and that's what we should use for categories speaking of multiple individuals. The word people is then free for use for ethnicities, with no conflict.

Some may think persons sounds a little stilted, and I don't disagree, but extremely high registers, such as encyclopedic writing, often do. --Trovatore (talk) 15:05, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

• "Alaskan Native" is the terminology used by the United States. What next, will people try to get us to rename Category:Native American people because "native" is ambiguous?John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:07, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
• Support rename to persons. If we have Category:American persons, Category:American persons of French descent, etc. we would actually avoid two problems. One is the confusion of categories where we are building off of articles that are Pawnee people, and the other is it would hopefully be more clear that articles on groups of people, such as musical groups, should not be put in articles that are for grouping individuals.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:09, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

I'd like to start a renaming discussion for Category:Riots and civil disorder by country. Instructions tell me that help for mass tagging all categories is available here, so - I am asking :) Here's my rationale.

Category:Riots and civil disorder by country, is a subcategory to Category:Riots, Category:Categories by country and Category:Man-made disasters by country, and states that it's main article is one on riot. At the same time it introduces a new term civil disorder, and as such is a compound category. Civil disorder is a parent concept to riots (riots are one of several types of a civil disorder) and currently does not have a dedicated category (Category:Civil disorder does not exist). Thus the "Riots and civil disorder" category is doubly problematic: not only it is a compound, but it is a compound of a higher and lower level concepts, with a clear hierarchy. I propose that we remove the "and civil disorders" from this series of categories, simplifying them to a clear concept of a riot (so, rename Category:Riots and civil disorder by country to Category:Riots by country), with no prejudice to create a parallel series of categories for civil disorder in general, which indeed seems like it would be a useful category in between Category:Man-made disasters and Category:Riots. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:51, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

I know you're not asking for this but I hope you don't mind me sharing my opinion before you do all this tagging - these cats are small, and having a compound cat is not bad, it's actually useful to readers- sort of like 'towns and villages' cats. There's also a fuzzy line between a riot and other forms of civil disorder. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 11:33, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

From the perspective of a sociologist with some background on civil disorder studies, I can assure you that there is a very clear line here: riots are a specific subtype of a civil disorder. Either way, you are welcome to object - but I am still waiting for someone to start the discussion. Thanks,--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:33, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

That may be - but look at Category:Riots_and_civil_disorder_in_France - do you really think the reader, not the professional sociologist, but the reader, would benefit from having all of the riots in one category, and all of the rest in another? Also, remember, some articles cover a broad spectrum of disturbances, including riots, strikes, assemblies, protests, and so on over the course of weeks or months, so those articles would have to be dual categorized? I think it's just too fine of a point especially given we only have a few articles per country, to create a whole separate tree which your suggestion implies.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 04:48, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it is important to have different categories. Riot is not the same as a sit-down, strike, or assembly. We have categories for most of those events; only the riot one is messed up. It needs to be cleaned up just as Category:Strikes (protest), for example. Or, in other words, most Category:Protests by type are notable and need clear, dedicated categories. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:31, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Piotrus. Civil disorder encompasses peaceful protests, and should not be lumped with riots in category names. bd2412 T 13:31, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

OK, I don't really want to get into the merits of the larger discussion, but — really? Peaceful protests are civil disorder? What's disorderly about them? They sometimes don't clean up their orange rinds and banana peels, is that what you mean? --Trovatore (talk) 19:25, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

There are lot of fine distinctions in the social sciences with regards to such actions, and the common everyday use of words like disorder may be a bit confusing for people without background in the related fields. From the lead of civil disorder, seems referenced: "a broad term that is typically used by law enforcement to describe one or more forms of unrest caused by a group of people. Civil disturbance is typically a symptom of, and a form of protest against, major socio-political problems; the severity of the action coincides with public expression(s) of displeasure. Examples of civil disorder include, but are not necessarily limited to: illegal parades; sit-ins and other forms of obstructions; riots; sabotage; and other forms of crime." Civil disorder can be peaceful, as long as it is illegal or (I'd have to research this claim, but I think is likely) disruptive in general. Focusing on the former, yes, illegal but non-violent sit-ins, hunger strikes, parades and demonstrations and other examples of civil disobedience are certainly a part of civil disorder, but are clearly separate from riots. In the category structure, it should be more or less like this: protests by type -> civil disorder (currently non-existing) -> civil disobedience | riots (two subcats), where riots are categorized under violence, crime and man-made disasters, and civil disobedience under nonviolence and activism (and some more irrelevant cats). Both, however, are examples of civil disorder. I hope this is more clear. PS. I have now created the category Category:Civil disorder.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:56, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, so it's a term used by law enforcement — maybe to make law-breaking but peaceful protests sound worse than they are? I'm concerned that using this term uncritically may amount to adopting a pro-law-enforcement POV. --Trovatore (talk) 20:52, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Most of the categories there are "Foo by type", but a small subset is "Types of foo". I suggest renaming all to the majority version. This would require mass nomination of Category:Types of websites (which should be Category:Websites by type), Category:Types of roads, Category:Types of government agencies, Category:Types of cheese, Category:Types of radios, Category:Types of insurance, Category:Types of diplomacy and Category:Types of databases. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:49, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Note... In some cases, the suggested target cat already exists and is conceptually different. For example: we have both Category:Types of roads and Category:Roads by type. The first focuses on articles about the various kinds of roads... the second is part of a "Category tree"... a "super-category" eventually leading to articles on specific roads.

Conformity can be helpful, but it can also be overdone. And sometimes there is a reason why a specific cat does not conform to the standard naming conventions. So... while a review and clean-up is a good idea, we really have to take it one cat at a time. An unthinking multi-rename, purely to conform names to a standard, will simply cause more problems than leaving things as they are would create. Blueboar (talk) 13:19, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Good point. Well, I started the cleanup by listing all categories in need of discussion above. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:11, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

I think all that may be needed is a new head category for "Types of foo" categories, which contain generic articles, as they are not the same as "Foo by type" which contain articles on individual examples. However, despite discussing this before, we have not yet come up with a suitable name. Perhaps it is best to leave them together, and add more explanations like the ones at Category:Types of roads and Category:Roads by type. – Fayenatic London 14:52, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

My noms on June 6th (artists) have not come out right, & are not on the TOC list. Could someone kindly sort out. As I complain here every year or so, the instructions for starting new noms really are very unclear and hard to follow, even for someone with 115,000 edits, which is probably why only about 6 people make all the noms here. They seem to have got even worse over time. Thanks. Johnbod (talk) 23:16, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

What exactly is missing? You have quite a few edits on that page. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:20, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

It would help if we knew exactly what about the instructions is confusing or problematic. From day 1, I have never found it hard to follow at all—I just use the original templates it tells you to use and then I copy and paste the produced template where it tells me to copy it to. But maybe I'm some sort of super genius. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 08:34, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

The last archive that is displayed here is titled 2012, yet I see that current discussion started just a couple of weeks ago, so there must have been some discussion earlier in 2013? Thanks in advance, XOttawahitech (talk) 14:46, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Link added to archive box.

Bencherlite^Talk

14:51, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Backlog at

WP:CFDWM

There is quite a backlog of categories at

08:29, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

so can the bot not do multiple merge targets? If not I wonder if we could fix this.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 12:58, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Cydebot cannot, but there was one in the past that could at least merge to two targets—AvicBot2 has done some in the past. I've pinged the user to ask if it still can do it. I'm not sure if it can do the three-target ones. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 23:57, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

@Good Olfactory: That's basically replacing one category with two, right? I could write a bot to do this, as well as other CFD things.  Hazard-SJ  ✈  05:47, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

That's right. Sometimes we even need to replace one with three, but replacing one with two is a fairly common result. I've received no reply from the other bot owner whose bot used to do this. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 05:59, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Okay, see #New bot request for approval.  Hazard-SJ  ✈  05:48, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

A thought about listification: If I recall correctly, kbdank71 used to have an automated (possibly semi automated) way to listify categories. I remember him implementing quite a few of such closes. I wonder if anyone else has any idea how that was done, and if it could be done by others. - jc37 06:00, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

if a list doesn't exist, the catscan tool by Magnus Manske can generate a list of all cat members and output the results in wiki text, which then just needs to be edited/trimmed. If the list does exist, you could then do post-processing with other tools to eliminate dupes.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 11:03, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

If it's simple formatting, it could be (semi-)automatically done.  Hazard-SJ  ✈  05:47, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Hello, I've just filed Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Hazard-Bot 23, and would love as much input there as possible. Thanks.  Hazard-SJ  ✈  05:46, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

This discussion may shed some light on the matter. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:29, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

And I just found a poll on the this here. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:36, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Where would I query about possibly diverging a category? I'm currently working on Category:Tamil Nadu MLAs and think that it might benefit from having various subcategories but I'm not sure what the best names for those subcats would be. The end result would be that the present category becomes just a container. - Sitush (talk) 12:54, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Many categories do not follow x is a y naming convention. A mouse belongs to the category "rodent" not "rodents" because a mouse is not a rodents. I know that it would be hard to get this followed consistently. Category:American_Airlines appears to be potentially a plural of Category:American_Airline. Whereas Category:FedEx_Express is clearly singular. It is not clear why the plural was chosen for most category names where the singular suffices to categorize. Most articles are properly named in the singular (e.g.,

) 18:20, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

You're reading the category tags incorrectly. They do not literally describe the article topic (Barack Obama is not a 1961 births), but rather the groups or topics to which it belongs (Barack Obama is one of many 1961 births. FedEx Express is one of the airlines of the United States, and a grouping of such airlines such as Category:Airlines of the United States is properly plural. The category names first and foremost describe the category's contents. postdlf (talk) 18:51, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

So the category should be Born in 1961. A list is plural as you say. But you are treating a category is if it were a list. The article Rodent is about rodents. Read it yourself if you doubt my observation. When there is a table, the column heading says Name. But if you look down through the column, you see many names listed. I'm not reading it wrong. The heading is properly singular even though the contents are more than one name. Someone can be in the category "American architect" which makes perfect sense: Frank Lloyd Wright (born Frank Lincoln Wright, June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an Category:American architect, ... But with the plural being used, this cannot be made to work. 75.208.245.67 (talk) 05:29, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

We'll just have to agree to disagree. You're honestly the first person I've ever seen take this position in all of the nine years we've had categories. postdlf (talk) 05:37, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I guess it depends from what stance one reads the category. If you take a strict article-centric stance, then what the anon is saying makes some sense. If you take a broader view of what categories do, what currently exists makes more sense. I agree with postdlf that I have never really seen this argument set out before. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 23:44, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

• My take is the name of a category reflects its contents, they are not descriptions of the individual articles.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:41, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

This series of categories seems to be an ongoing concern when the old name is not the current name. I'm not sure how to resolve this. I'm thinking that maybe we need an RFC for more input. Clearly we need more input on this since many of these discussions lack consensus and based on individual discussions, not all of them are being closed in the same way. I'm willing to open the RFC, but I'm not sure of what the options should be. Is it just be:

For places established prior to the formal establishment of the current country how should 'establishments in' be categorized:

1. By the country at the time of establishment
2. By the current country where the place is located
3. Both of the above

Note: For some countries, there is a well established tree. For example, Category:Establishments in the United States splits out the pre history into Category:Establishments in the Thirteen Colonies by year. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:31, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

• Comment. One thing that has been continuously puzzling to me is why users seem intent on approaching this issue from the sub-"yyyy establishments in Foo" category tree rather than the parent "yyyy in Foo" tree. Obviously, for any given tree, in most cases the two categories—child and parent—should correspond in naming format, but there have been several efforts to change the former without changing the latter. We now have some situations were the parent category is named differently than the establishment subcategory. Perhaps if an RFC is started, it should be broadened out to encompass the broader scheme. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 23:41, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
  • I brought this specific example up since it seems to the the current nomination trend. But you are likely correct in that the resolution should apply to the broader category names as well. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:44, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
• If there are no additional comments I'll likely open an RFC in the near term. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:58, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
• The reason this gets approached from the establishments in yyyy year issue is because in so many cases the x place in yyyy exists only as a container category for the later category, and the later category is the only one wiht actual contents. Having seen how the discussions have gone so far, I wish we would go for a "use the name and boundaries applicable to the time in question", that is what I really wish we would do.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:38, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

I came up with two categories covering exactly same topic Category:1909 awards when we already have Category:Awards established in 1909‎. Furthur inspection reveals that there is a whole branch of categories i.e Category:xxxx awards. I am failing to see any reason why we should have two sets of categories on the exactly same topic. The Legend of Zorro 10:51, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, the Grey Cup is a ball game and a trophy. Neither of which counts as an award. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:27, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

I think 1909 awards is for particular annual instalment of the award, and the awards established in 1909 is for the award in general, for example, The Happy Awards 1909 would go the 1st, and The Happy Awards would go in the second. Tim! (talk) 18:56, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

This page tells me how to merge, delete, rename, etc. but not how to create a new Category page. Can anyone add this information to the page or show me where this information is located? I've read every page I can find on Categories on Wikipedia with no luck at all. 69.125.134.86 (talk) 23:55, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Asked and answered here. Vegaswikian (talk) 00:06, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you,

talk

) 17:45, 27 July 2013 (UTC) (was @69 but had to create a registered account to file a request)

I was just curious as to how long of a period a proposal is open before an Admin or group of Admin makes a decision (Merge, delete, rename or keep). I've been going back daily to respond to comments but I'm not sure how long to keep that up, if a decision will be made after a week, a month or if I'll need to relist it. I understand that Admins like to see a consensus reached but if there is not any or very little debate, is there a default decision (either keep or change)?

What's the general timeline for Categories for discussion assuming that the proposal doesn't concern a controversial subject? Thanks!

) 17:45, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

• I think in theory things can be responded to in a week. In practice, it seems more like 2-3 weeks for things where there is no opposition, and over a month for things where there is discussion. The whole process attracts very little attention. We currently have some debates that have been up almost 2 months, but some of the older ones relate to the RFC above.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:15, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the information, John Pack Lambert. It's very helpful to know. I'm a little disappointed because I thought, with categories, I had found an area where I could do a lot of productive work (organizing, finding standards for inclusion, etc.). It's too bad that cases are left open indefinitely. I understand that slow is better than too fast, it's just a challenge to be in the midst of a organizing project and then stop and return to it after a month or two. You have to remember what issues first led you to file a CfD! 69.125.134.86 (talk) 20:21, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

You have a good point. The failure to close CfDs on things like Category:1989 establishments in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has lead to me having to face odd decisions on how to name new establishments by year by place categories. I generally try to apply logical principles of what the place was called then, except when there is clearly a duplicate category in existence that covers the same thing. I try not directly creating duplication.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:27, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Hello.

I have just started a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sports#Ambiguous categories.

HandsomeFella (talk) 18:08, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Just a heads up. I will not be able to close the establishment discussions here. I participated in a related discussion on this specific naming issue, so someone else will need to close this group. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:33, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Is anyone willing to do these?????? Does anyone care? Vegaswikian (talk) 01:24, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

I know this has been broached a couple times in the past and the consensus was always claimed to be in favor of keeping these categories, but I'd like to know if it's possible to open a new discussion since the last one was around 2006 or 2007, I think. I cannot for the life of me understand how it could be acceptable to the vast majority of editors to categorize people based on sexual orientation considering we don't even bother to categorize people who are heterosexual. And this isn't anything like categorizing people based on their ethnicity, national origin or religion. This kind of categorizing comes across as very POV and at the very least controversial. We're now in the year 2013. If there is agreement among others, I'd like to propose reopening a discussion on all sexual orientation categories (LGBT people, bisexual people, etc) and whether or not they are actually necessary. Laval (talk) 00:57, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

The "...and we don't categorize [nonminority] people" complaint isn't specific to the context of sexual orientation. I suggest you read through some of the past discussions that have been made on that issue for a long time and then form a response to them. Also, discuss why

WP:BLPCAT isn't sufficient to deal with the POV or controversy of sexual orientation categorization. postdlf (talk

) 01:11, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Country establishment and disestablishment categories

I modified the templates to only display the inverse if it exists. Also the decades categories only are displayed if they exist. This reduces red links in sparsely populated trees. Vegaswikian (talk) 01:26, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Can new categories that are not patrolled be speedy deleted? I'm seeing many of these nominated for a full discussion. Clearly many new editors don't understand how categories work and mistakes will happen. But do we need a full discussion when a speedy would be sufficient? Since deletion would require admin action, there would be a review of any nomination and the option to have a full discussion. Maybe C3? Vegaswikian (talk) 00:11, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

At the discussions for Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 August 17#Category:Films by Winsor McCay and Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 August 17#English cricketers, User:Lugnuts has been using hostile, condescending, and even sexist language when interacting with other editors. I dealt with this stuff from this editor recently when they started editwarring over at How a Mosquito Operates, and then was subject to it again at the Category:Films by Winsor McCay discussion. Has anyone else had such problems with this editor? Curly Turkey (gobble) 09:40, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

This series of categories (Category:yyyy establishments in Foo) seems to be an ongoing concern when the old name is not the current name. I'm not sure how to resolve this. I'm thinking that maybe we need an RFC for more input. Clearly we need more input on this since many of these discussions lack consensus and based on individual discussions, not all of them are being closed in the same way. That may not be the result of any errors, but rather discussions varying based on the conditions surrounding the history of a place.

So the question is, for places established prior to the formal establishment of the current country how should 'establishments in' be categorized:

1. By the country at the time of establishment
2. By the current country where the place is located
3. Both of the above
4. By the country at the time of establishment with a category redirect for the current country

Note: For some countries, there is a well established tree. For example, Category:Establishments in the United States splits out the immediate pre history into Category:Establishments in the Thirteen Colonies by year.

While most recent discussions have been over establishments, how to address the parent categories (Category:yyyy in Foo) should be addressed at the same time. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:00, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

• I haven't seen any of the discussions. Perhaps some links to some examples? Commenting blind, I would think it depends on the nature of the content on the establishment. If the content is on the history of establishing, then it belongs under the then existing name. If the content deals with a place mostly as a very old place in a current perspective, then, ... maybe the date of establishment is not defining. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:30, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
  • 1, 2,3 and 4 are some of the older examples. And yes, we have discussion open that long! Vegaswikian (talk) 16:36, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Although I can see the attraction of applying current country boundaries to the past I can see a few problems such as

1) ambiguity: if a country exists now and in the past but has different boundaries (e.g. Poland) if an article is in a year category is it referring to the current or historical boundaries of that country?

2) political sensitivity: there could be political discomfort about applying current boundaries into the past, e.g. United Kingdom or Northern Ireland to pre-1801 articles, or China categories to Tibet articles pre-1951.

3) maintenance: if categories are defined along the boundaries of the year then there will never be the need to change them, but if you apply current boundaries, as they change you will need to go back and adjust all the previous years. A theoretical example would be if you applied United Kingdom boundaries to pre-1707 Scotland categories, and then if next year's independence referendum resulted in Scottish independence, you would need to go back and remove them following such an outcome. Tim! (talk) 18:51, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Note, where this started mainly due to the 'establishments' trees, this goes for anything, whether it is about people who are born, treaties, &c. &c. It goes for anything that is 'established'/created/signed at a certain point.

Generally, I agree with Tim! There are some cases which result in really strange situations. Moreover, the trees of 'subjects by year by place' seem to follow different systems depending on the type of subject - 'Establishments' are mainly categorised as where they would be if they were established now, others are categorised according where the event happened in the time when it happened (imagine births of people to be defined by the country where they would be born if they would be born now, Arabs may become Israeli ..).

I would suggest to strictly categorise by how an area was named in the time the event happened, and consider using category redirects to point back from the 'now' to the then. If an area was named 'A' in 1900, and is now called 'B', and the establishment was established in 1900, and in a place which would now be in 'B', then it would be a '1900 establishment in A', and '1900 establishment in B' would be a category-redirect back to A, though that category itself should not be populated at all. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:02, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

I have added option 4 to cover this option. Question. Should the top level category and all subcategories be redirects or just some, say the top yyyy category only? Vegaswikian (talk) 17:45, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Redirects should be fine for simple examples. I see no problem with creating Category:1910 in Ghana as a category redirect to Category:1910 in Gold Coast (British colony) and the corresponding establishments for that year. Tim! (talk) 20:17, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

@Vegaswikian (talk · contribs): Not sure what you mean. Any category that links 1910 to Ghana should IMHO be a redirect to the corresponding 1910 in Gold Coast (British Colony) category. Not sure whether all the redirect categories should be categorised by themselves in '1910' categories and 'Ghana' categories (i.e., categories that do not link the two properties) or whether that should be the '1910 in Gold Coast (British Colony)' that is categorised under Ghana / 1910 based category that is not linking those two properties.

Now the other way around, say we now have two adjacent countries A and B, who were, in some distant past, countries C and D .. but in the now-situation, half of C is in A, and half of C is in B, as well as that half of D is in A and half of D is in B .. I am trying to envisage how that should be: should it be 'disambiguated' (redirects would not be possible?), or? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:03, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

• We should, where possible, apply the boundaries and names that existed at the time of the establishment. This is in large part because many of the things that get established (musical groups and companies definately, but even educational institutions) move. Additionally some of the things established are provinces or other sub-national entities that may transcend modern boundaries and monetary units, that are established throughout the country as a whole. On the same note, the way the question is worded misses a big point. We have lots of things established in what is now Romania, but at a time when where they were established was in Austria-Hungary or the Austrian Empire. In cases like that, or things established in Thesalonika in 1900, when it was in the Ottoman Empire but Greece existed, it is pretty clear we should not call them 1900 establishments in Romania or 1900 establishments in Greece, because that implies those countries as larger than they were at the time. I think in general we should also default to the simplest possible name, thus we should use Germany in 1900, India in 1900 and Russia in 1900, even though those are not exactly the Germany, Russia or India meant today. We maybe should tweak the category headers though so they link to the most specific article we have on the entity.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:00, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

That said, there are some exceptions to using the name as used at the time to the polity. I woud argue Gran Colombia should be used and not just Colombia, even though contemporaries would have used Colombia.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:10, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

• One decision I think we should make clearly here is that Canada should only be used for places called such at the time. I am perfectly OK with 1820s, 1830s, 1840s and 1850s Canada categories, but Nova Scotia and New Brunswick should not be in it. At the same time Newfoundland categories should not be placed under Canada before Newfoundland joined the Dominion of Canada.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:10, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
  • I disagree. Pre-Confederation categories for "Canada" have always included stuff that happened within the current borders of Canada. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 21:22, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
• Comment. In a number of discussions I have made my views clear. To summarise, I can see the benefits of using either #1 or #2; for that reason, I favour #3 as a good compromise solution. They don't both have to be fully developed in every case, but both systems should be allowed to develop organically, as they have been to date. There are currently fairly extensive schemes that use both systems, and I don't see any good reason to favour one above the other. Both can co-exist. (I'm not sure that this RFC is clear and succinct enough to encourage participation by uninvolved users.) Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 21:24, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
• Option #1 - "By the country at the time of establishment" (with relevant borders at the time) is the only logically possible option. We would like wikipedia to be a source of knowledge, striving towards stable articles, which evolve into "good articles". Just imagine what happens if we retro-apply current country entities and borders upon the past - we would be required to change all categories back in history until the ice age. If Western Kurdistan theoretically splits from Syria - all events on its territory would be renamed? this is nonsense and rewriting of history. Furthermore applying modern entities and borders on past events would create ridiculous situations like
  First Ottoman Siege of Constantinople can be put under "Category:1422 in Turkey" (so the Turks invaded Turkey???).Greyshark09 (talk
  ) 19:16, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
  • I disagree that #1 is "the only logically possible option". Using #2 at times is not re-writing history—it's simply recognising that when a thing happens in place X, and place X exists within the current borders of country Y, then all things that have ever happened in place X become relevant to discussion of the history of country Y. But in any case, even if a user rejects that approach and prefers the approach of #1, why does that make #4 not a logically possible option? Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 19:51, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
• Option 3. Both approaches are possible, logical and interesting for our readers. In many cases, 1 and 2 will of course be the same. Note that the same approach (older X applied to current country Y) is the standard approach for people, e.g.
  Fram (talk
  ) 07:37, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
  • That is a circular argument, Fram. That those categories exist does not make it right, and they fall within the scope of these as well. Maybe also those should be changed. That category is actually more anachronistic than the establishments one. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:43, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Separate question about the currently open discussions

There is a concern about leaving the current discussions open. Should they be left open or should they be closed as no consensus? There are several nominations currently open that are likely to have consensus including some for followups for trees that were not fully nominated in the first past. So these are back to finish changing the categories in a tree. If there is a decision to close, those should probably be allowed to continue. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:00, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

• I would say that unless there is clearly no consensus they should not be closed as such. Many of the current nominations are for renaming to use the name of the place at the time, and no one has opposed that. Others such as the Pakistan and Israel ones are following earlier clear consensuses to merge them to the Ottoman Empire and India.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:00, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
  • That's got things a bit backwards. Discussions are not closed with a consensus result unless there is a clear consensus. If there is no clear consensus, they are closed as "no consensus". Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 21:18, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
• I think we should link from the currently open CfDs to this RFC though.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:40, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

CfD's related to this subject

Below a list of CfD-pages containing one or more discussions regarding '<something> by year by place' categories. List for 2013 is complete as far as I am aware, I may have missed some from before 2013.

• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 September 8
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 September 7
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 September 3
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 September 1
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 August 31
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 August 28
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 August 26
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 August 23
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 August 17
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 August 15
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 August 10
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 August 5
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 August 1
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 July 29
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 July 20
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 July 11
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 July 10
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 July 9
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 July 8
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 July 2
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 June 26
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 June 25
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 June 21
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 June 20
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 June 19
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 June 18
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2013_June_17
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2013_June_14
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2013_June_12
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2013_June_11
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2013_June_10
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2013_June_7
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2013_June_6
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2013_June_5
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2013_June_4
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2013_June_3
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2013_May_30
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2013_May_28
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 April 5
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 March 9
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 February 13
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2013_January_16
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 January 6
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 January 2
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2012_December_24
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2012_December_21
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2012_December_17
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 December 15
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 December 14
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 December 10
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 December 8
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 August 24
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 July 27
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2012_June_10
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2012_June_9
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 June 4
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 April 15
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 April 5
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 March 21
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 January 16
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2011 December 19
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2010 November 9

• Comment To be fair the November 9th nomination hardly counts since no one mentioned that Australia per se did not exist back then, and so it is unclear that most of those involved even knew that was a potential issue. The whole discussion is about category size, not about whether or not the category itself is valid.
• Comment Looking over the past CfDs I realized we have Category:1938 establishments in South Korea, I am very sure in a case like Korea we should not retroactively oppose the post-WWII division. I think we may need a specific discussion to decide in what exact year to start the division, but 1938 is clearly too soon.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:43, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Replying to the first comment - it does show a 'symptom', though.
    WP:SMALLCAT becomes a circular argument. Likely most of the tree before 1000 BC for practically the whole world will not have more than 3 items at max (not even on average; As I have argued in the previous RfC regarding this: "Category:10th-century establishments by country is a tree of 72 categories (including self) to host 25 articles; with ~200 countries and 100 years, it would need 20,000 articles to get at average to 1"), and for some small countries (like Monaco, Vatican), that tree will even have less than 5 items for previous years (Category:1980s establishments in Monaco, 3 subcategories (4 categories total) with 1 page each (0.75 articles per category)). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C}
    07:58, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
    • However, the evidence is that these categories are all far under developed. I am going to go try to fully develop the Monaco cats, and then come back with a comment.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:03, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
      • On another note, category:1987 establishments in Monaco now has 2 articles. It is also part of the `1987 establishments by country tree, which has 123 total sub-cats, and 853 articles. However I just went through and added the first 20 articles in Category:Portected areas established in 1987 to their by country or by country sub-division categories, and not one of those articles had yet been added to the tree, so there is a lot of potential groth for the tree even among already categorized articles.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:48, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
        • I know that they are still underdeveloped - but to start a scheme without knowing how far it will become developed in the end, and then to defend the small categories that are there and will likely not fill up thát much because of the larger scheme? How many establishments were there in China 1040 BC (a tree that had potential to grow/develop since February 8, 2012)?
        • Note, that 853 / 123 is averaging to less than 7 per category, quite small (for non-scheme small categories, what would we define as 'too small'? 10? And how much expected growth do we need to expect on a category containing 1 article?), and knowing that that also contains large countries like UK, US (which together take out the majority of the 853 articles; there are many in 1987 which have 1 page at the moment) does not give me much hope that the whole tree for a recent decade for e.g. Monaco will get, on average, more than 2-3 in the very end (I've heard this argument as well a year ago .. please prove me wrong). How many notable establishments are there likely to be established in a year on a couple of square kilometers. And this is 1987, go to 1960 and what happens? (A: average about 5, and looking at the tree, most of them have 1, 2 or 3). It would need, on average, for all those categories, a 500% increase to get to an average of 10. Still, this tree is, because of the larger scheme, filled back and split up to the millennia before Christ ..
        • I believe that individual categories may on some occasions get to a significant (>100? .. US category in 1925 is 96, noting that tree is split up to 23 categories, an average of about 4, still needs an increase of 250% to get to an average of 10; 1987: currently an average of 8, if we assume that Oregon is a reasonably worked-out category, and add 50% we would get an average of about 50 in the end for the whole of the U.S.) number of articles in them. I'd like to see a recent decade of Monaco completely filled out, then add 50% as a margin of growth, and see what the average is. That a tree is split up to this level for big countries in recent times makes sense, but I wonder if it is a valid thought to then call it a larger scheme and apply it globally .. on average the whole tree would get pretty small, and some sub-trees will stay small (and especially when we go back in time to before 1900, maybe even 1950). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:02, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
          • While not about this tree, I have been filling in the yyyy categories for lighthouses, towers and houses. These are well established and populated. Yet many new articles don't get added. The same probably applies to the rest of the yyyy tree. I would guess that the number of categories is simply too great for many editors to know what they are missing when they start an article. So this type of category will never be complete in most cases. The same probably applies to most lists. Is this a problem? Yes. But do we need to do something? I don't know. Vegaswikian (talk) 16:20, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
            • In theory though, light houses are established, and they clearly have a place, so they should probably be categorized by the place they are established in by the year they are established.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:33, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
              • But why categorize by both being built and established? Buildings are built and not established. But that was not the point of the comment. It was that many editors don't seem to care about the years when things happened so articles are simply not being categorized into specific year categories. As to lighthouses, they are in the year tree by virtue of the years (yes multiple years in many cases) and their location. Do we really need another by year by location category? As I said, the current trees are not being populated so adding more duplicate categories for buildings by year is overkill. Companies are established and buildings are built. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:48, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
                • So .. of the possible subjects that fit into a 'by year by country' category, we split it up by 'treaty', 'establishment', 'built', 'invented', 'discovered' .. so we make the number of categories bigger, and the number of articles per category even smaller. For filling a complete tree for the 19th century, we now need at least 1,000,000 notable subjects in the 19th century alone to get to an average filling of 10 per category (sure, it will not exist for every country and every year in that, but we have 4,288,721 content pages (and counting). If we would fit all our articles into the 20 and 21st century (for which we can say that the whole tree is likely to exist completely - practically every country will have at least one notable establishment in each year), we get to 190 articles on average per category (that is within one category-page-display, not too big to handle so it would absolutely need a split up!) if ALL of our articles would be related to events happening in those 113 years (which is not true, we have things that happened 3000 years ago that would fit in this tree). Then we split up per 'treaty', 'establishment', 'built', 'invented', 'discovered' .., which makes it 38 on average (and we now assume that every single article would fit in a 'year by country' type of category, which is also not true for our 4.3 million articles).
                • But as I said, this is a mere symptom of the tree by virtue of its existence. Although it worries me, I can see this type of tree is of use, and the software of Wikipedia does not give a real better solution (I've been advocating CatScan, which may be a solution, but no-one works with it, it has severe limitations and does not work perfectly if I understand correctly). We could have a look at the German system, which does not split up categories like we do, but of course that is a different choice. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:17, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
• Comment We have right now the absurdity of Category:1935 establishments in Moldova containing an article on a newspaper established clearly by Romanian institutions, that ceased to function when the Soviets invaded in 1940, thus birthing Moldova as a distict entity from Romania. Romania was all one in 1935, to treat the boundary imposed by the Soviets in 1940 as having any meaning in 1935 is to ignore the unity of the country.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:30, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't think actual usage agrees with you that "physical items are not established." Anyway, lots of things are both an organization and a physical thing. I think it makes sense to say that lakes are established for example.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:36, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

And when was Lake Tahoe] established? Dams are built and they generally create a lake. But it was the dam that has a clear date, or at least a date that it began impounding water. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:25, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

(back to main discussion)

• I thought we had reached a consensus that the category name should reflect the current political situation, but it should be parented according to the name of the present polity. This seems to work well. This has I think been the common outcome of a large number of CFD noms. Personally I am not fond of small annual categories that are what we tend to get at remote periods. I would prefer these to be upmerged to decades or even centuries. Peterkingiron (talk) 22:34, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Well, the most clear case where we have not managed to get a use the boundaries that applied at the time is scene in the various discussions of things like Category:1826 establishments in Turkey. Also, the discussion of Category:1903 establishments in Poland is not moving towards a consensus, but there is some disagreement on whether Poland existed in 1903. The same problem comes up with Category:1939 establishment in Moldavia, where it is not always clear if people want to apply the category to the 1939 Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic or to the modern boundaries of Moldavia (at one point the cat was renamed to clearly link to the Moldavian ASSR, but none of its contents fit there). I think it would be good it we went with "use the boundaries at the time", but while there is widespread support for doing so in most cases, I have gotten very little if any support for doing so with things like the South African Republic, as opposed to acting as if South Africa existed in 1889.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:09, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Moreover, there is still the drive by some (Good Olfactory (talk · contribs) being one) to consider to include both the category of the current status ánd the 'historically correct' category of the status at the time that the 'event' happened. I'm still not sure how that should work out in cases like Gran Colombia, which encompasses about 12 current countries for 'events' (a treaty is under specific discussion there) that have an impact on the whole of Gran Colombia and are hence of interest to the history of all 12 current countries (though the 'event' was concluded in one specific place, which would locate it in one specific place, and hence one specific 'now-country'). Should this be done? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:56, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
• The difference between being built and established is often not very great. That said, a lot of things that are buildings are also functional institutions. What comes to mind the fastest is something like the Detroit Michigan Temple. Yes it is a building, but it is also a functional institution that had a start to functioning. I am not the first person to think bridges, etc. can be put into categories like Category:1926 establishments in Oregon.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:00, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Yes, an institution is generally, not always, established once. However the building can be built, demolished, and built over again. So the buildings can have several dates. There is one major difference. With buildings and structures we don't attempt to categorize by year by country. That seems to have avoided the issues with the establishments and country by year discussion that lead to this discussion. So I guess I should have added 'eliminate the established by year by country' tree to the options. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:25, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
    • However, buildings, bridges, etc. are established in countries, and many have been so categorized for some time. This is establially true of well developed categories like Norway and Oregon. The other thing is, for some institutions their movement to a new location is as significant as their initial establishment, so the establishment in x year in y place is really the only way to connect them to that specific year.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:59, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
• Comment. In a number of discussions I have made my views clear. To summarise, I can see the benefits of using either #1 or #2; for that reason, I favour #3 as a good compromise solution. They don't both have to be fully developed in every case, but both systems should be allowed to develop organically, as they have been to date. There are currently fairly extensive schemes that use both systems, and I don't see any good reason to favour one above the other. Both can co-exist. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 21:21, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Here we get back to examples like Gran Colombia. A treaty signed in one city in Gran Colombia does not make it of interest to only the history of the current country that that city is in, it is still of interest to all the countries (about 12) that exist now, and all of which were on the territory of Gran Colombia. Yes, I agree that both option 1 and 2 would be good, but for such cases, it results in, at least, 13 categories. 12 of them completely superfluous to the one with Gran Colombia in its name. Similarly, calling an Ottoman castle a 'establishment in Saudi Arabia' is utterly anachronistic, or calling an Arabian building in what is now Israel an Israeli establishment is simply politically incorrect. Make them just category redirects, but do not contain articles in them and you avoid all of these problems. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:48, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
    • But we are not calling them "Israeli establishments" we are calling them "establishmen ts in x". Thus we have articles on embassies placed not under the sponsoring country, but under the country where the embassy is located. This is not a statement on the political nature of the thing, but its geographical nature. A mosque established in Nazareth in 1950 clearly goes in Category:1950 establishments in Israel, no matter how pro-Hamas and anti-Israel the people who started the mosque were.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:07, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
      • But that is in 1950 .. now go back to 1900. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 04:38, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
• I prefer option 3: best of both worlds :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:54, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
  • That does not really address all the concerns that editors have expressed (e.g. from the plethora of CfD's regarding these subjects, and the reason this RfC was started) with the option of using the current situation. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:36, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
• Another problem with option 3 is that in some cases (Israel) applying it will create major objections, yet if we treat Israel differently than other places people will object. I also can see major problems with say defining a ethnically Bulgarian high school established in Thesalonika when it was part of the Ottoman Empire as an establishment in Greece. I bring up this example because we really have an article on it.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:59, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
• Eliminating the establishments by country by year tree would also present us with a whole mess of having lots more articles in the xxxx establishments cats, without having any easy way to subcategorize them, and might force us to try and figure out what exactly some complex things are. On another note, actually the issue is not limited to xxxx establishments in y cats. We also have xxxx in y cats. These cover things like riots, elections and other major events. I really think that if we just universally applied "use the boundaries that existed in the year involved" things would be a lot simpler. The thing is getting established in that year. Some of the things involved are organizations that only are connected to the place because their initial meeting was held there. So these categories are really about that place in that year.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:03, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
• Comment - i would like to make an intermediate summary of opinions, based on the 4 choices given by Vegaswikian:

Vegaswikian (no clear opinion in this thread/initiator), SmokeyJoe (no clear opinion), Tim! (tends to #4), Beetstra (#1 or conditionally #4), Johnpacklambert (implies #1), Good Olfactory (#3), Greyshark09 (#1), Fram (#3), Peterkingiron (unclear, possibly meaning #4?), Piotrus (#3).

You are welcome to correct me/add more.Greyshark09 (talk) 15:15, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Counting is evil, it is the arguments people give for their choice, but I think I would opt for 4 (with technical concerns). To me that really makes the most sense. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 04:42, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

• I believe that #1 is the best option, with #3 being my second choice. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 05:54, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
• Note - I just encountered a long discussion: Wikipedia_talk:Noticeboard_for_India-related_topics/Archive_54#2013_Bangladesh_India_WikiProjects_dispute_resolution, related to subjects in Bangladesh-area before it was established (before 1947 it was (British) India, between 1947 and 1971 it was East Pakistan, after 1971 it was Bangladesh; the name 'Bangladesh' for that area was coined on December 5, 1969). The thoughts of that discussion may be of interest here. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:27, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
• The attempt to make direct allusions to how people by place is done fails on several grounds. We actually have lots of nationality categories for defunct nationalities, and if you look at
  Paul of Tarsus belong in Category:Turkish Christians.John Pack Lambert (talk
  ) 19:24, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
• Comment On the issue of Category:1935 establishments in Moldova I also find it objectionable this category was created at a time it was clearly that we have not decided whether Moldova in 1935 means the modern state of Moldova, or the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, which if its means the later the category is being misapplied. Category:1935 establishments in Germany, Category:1935 establishments in Poland, Category:1935 establishments in the Soviet Union, Category:1935 establishments in Yugoslavia, Category:1935 establishments in Italy are all using the 1935 boundaries, and it was clear some people think that Moldova in 1935=the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, and their views are persuasive enough that for 1938 and 1939 they got a speedy rename to clear endorse this view. Also, the use of thinks like Category:Establishments in the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic, possibly an attempt to avoid the Transnistrian mess, shows that there is some view we should not use Moldova before 1991.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:36, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

We have Category:Establishments in the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic by year. Moldova in the 1930s should be the Moldavian ASSR. Sort of like how Category:1935 establishments in India, uses the 1935 boundaries of India, not the 1950 boundaries of the place.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:39, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

This claim is demonstated by Tejgaon Government High School being in Category:1935 establishments in India.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:41, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

• Comment In adding categories like Category:1963 establishments in Malaysia to things that when established were in what was then Malaysia (Singapore was part of Malaysia in 1963), I have noticed an odd trend of deletionists. One person deleted Ngee Ann Polytechnic by just asserting that the category was wrong. Even if they disagreed, to just delete the category makes no sense. I saw the same with a thing now in Northern Ireland that I had not noticed was actually established in England, instead of putting it in the England category the editor just deleted the Northern Ireland cat. The worst was with a synagogue formed in 1921 in New Jersey that someone deleted from Category:1921 establishments in New Jersey because they said the category was not needed. Some people seem to be fighting the groth of these categories in any way, even when there is no question they apply. I am not sure why. So any comments on these categories size ignore that they seem to struggle to grow, because some editors seem to be content to delete with no reason.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:48, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
  • There is an unique problem with establishments in that they are over used. Organizations and companies are established, physical items are not. Many establishment categories make this point, but some editors don't seem to follow this as closely as it probably needed. But then, this is not the problem being discussed here. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:21, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
  • In reply to Johnpacklambert (talk · contribs) - yes, many of these categories are not 'full' yet, however, some of these categories will likely also contain some items that do not belong in there (I am not saying that these examples were rightfully removed .. ), in the end (and especially on average) most of these categories will remain very, very small. For the synagoge, the article is in Category:Religious organizations established in 1921 and in Category:Synagogues in New Jersey, it is pretty obvious that it is then a Category:1921 establishments in New Jersey. Did you ask why Tinton5 (talk · contribs) thought it was 'not needed'? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:14, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

I recently came across this edit and this edit (both on 5 August). They both appear to be incomplete speedy rename nominations. I can't find any discussion of these categories (but may have missed something). Are these incomplete nominations and is there a way to find any other incomplete speedy rename nominations? I've left a note with the editor who made these nominations, but if anyone thinks they are incomplete nominations, please feel free to complete them if no-one has done so. Carcharoth (talk) 11:01, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

The only way I know of is after the month ends, and someone looks through the list of open nominations. Then it can be renominated. If I recall, I renominated some this month that were incomplete. This was easier when most discussions were closed in a timely manner. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:09, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

From these discussions [2] [3] (also see [4]) it would seem that the many subcategories in Category:Biomolecules by type of organism and Category:Chemical compounds found in food should also be discussed. However, there are hundreds of these "X compound found in Y" categories. Any suggestions on how to implement a CfD this large number of categories? --Kkmurray (talk) 02:28, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

I am now using this: [5] - seems to accomplish the task. --Kkmurray (talk) 03:50, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Also this tool is good for generating lists of categories:[6] --Kkmurray (talk) 01:48, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

I need help tagging a few hundred categories in this nomination: Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2013_September_21#Category:Chemical_compounds_found_in_Acanthaceae. Thanks. --Kkmurray (talk) 15:38, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

The existence of a policy to notify creators of a category is being raised at deletion review. I'm not aware of any such policy. Is anyone here aware of it? Vegaswikian (talk) 19:54, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

No, we do not have a policy requiring such notification. The closest we come is at WP:AfD, which says:

• Notifying substantial contributors to the article: While not required, it is generally considered courteous to notify the good-faith creator and any main contributors of the articles that you are nominating for deletion. (italics mine for emphasis)

While we do not have a similar statement in the CfD instructions, I think it safe to say that the same would apply for CfD nominations... it's not required, but it is considered courteous to do. Blueboar (talk) 20:27, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

• Everyone agrees that it is courteous, but many do not agree with adding to the burden of CfD nominators, noting that CfD is maintenance work and not content deleting. So, we think a bot notification would be good, as long as it didn't notify other bots or anyone on the opt-out list, which is to be seeded with Kbdank71. Category speedy renamers, who are then recorded as the renamed category creators, probably don't want their talk pages flooded with every subsequent rename nomination. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:43, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
• Making such a requirement would make CfD more difficult. The fact of the matter is it is much easier to create a category than an article. Articles need sources, at least in most cases, categories don't. Articles we can tell who added the content. Categories, it is much harder. You have to go to each article, and hunt through its history to see who added the categories. Categories are also much more likely to have been renamed than articles, making it nearly impossible to figure out who the actual creator is. There are higher levels of being a verified user to create articles than categories. Lastly, an article has content, a category has articles. The whole dynamics are different. There are lots of articles I have seen that were downright trivial, that had notices saying the subject needs more sources, that were on people who seem not to meet any notability requirements, but with a 4 step process I just don't feel the motivation to nominate them for deletion. A bad article just sits there, but does not disrupt much. A trivial category, like one of the hundreds of unneeded awards categories we have, can clutter up articles with lots of unneeded categories. Anyway, articles are normally discussed on a case by case basis. Categories, half the time nominations of one category get shot down on procedural grounds. Just imagine if the person who had nominated all 100+ old fooian categories for rename had had to notify the creators of all those categories. We might still be plagued with Category:Old Dragons being one of the ones Christopher Tolkien is in, because the effort to fix the problem would have been too great.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:40, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
  
• It takes less time to post a notice on a category creator's Talk Page or the relevant WikiProject than it does to submit a CfD proposal. It is not onerous and because Editors working at CfD are not omnipotent, discussions need the input from people who are knowledgeable about the parent & child categories and where they fit in the larger category structure. We can't look at a single category in isolation but need to understand its context.
  

Above all, posting notices should not be skipped in order to avoid discussing deletions, renames and mergers with those who care about the category. Practices like that show bad faith and help foster the impression that CfD is owned by a small group of users. CfD needs more transparency to get over the perception of it by other Editors that their participation is unwelcome. I know that this is not true but it's a common misperception and for some people, perception equals reality. Participation in CfD by other Editors should be encouraged.

Finally, in a spot-check I did last week, about half of the CfD nominators had posted notices at the relevant WikiProject and category creator Talk Pages. It's an accepted practice by most of the regular CfD nominators and apparently this step is not burdensome. Their practice should be emulated. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 15:50, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

why isn't watchlisting categories you create sufficient? - indeed, this happens automatically, and category pages themselves change rarely, so it's not that hard to monitor. We should always tag the categories - all of them - under discussion - but I agree forcing notification which apparently isn't even required for AFD goes a bit too far and if a category has been renamed its almost impossible to determine the original creator. That said, if you use twinkle it notifies automatically, so that's what I do.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:05, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Also if the category is tagged for a project it shows on their deletion discussion watch list. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:36, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Your second point is a clear violation of

WP:AGF since you are saying that editors don't notify to to avoid discussing deletions, renames and mergers with those who care about the category. Rather then the truth which is that there are already many auto notification means in place for those that care. Vegaswikian (talk

) 18:35, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

• There is a related thread at
  Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion/Archive 2012#Add requirement that Projects be notified when associated categories are discussed.
  Earlier today, I was notified about a CfD for a cat that I'd forgotten creating, for which I'm grateful, since some of the posts on the discussion have misunderstood both the nomination and the purpose of the category. I'm glad that I was given the opportunity to explain things. --Redrose64 (talk
  ) 18:51, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

User Categories?

Re: Category:User:Terraflorin - I wasn't sure whether to tag this and submit it as I had never seen a category based around a User. Is this allowed? Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 16:20, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

It depends upon what it's used for. It seems to contain only pages in the same user's User: and User talk: spaces, so it's probably a legit test. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:17, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Interesting, Redrose64, I didn't know that Editors could have their own categories. Learn something new! Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:11, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

I've found

WP:OC/U which may help. --Redrose64 (talk

) 22:03, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Category:Categories for discussion from July 2012

Anyone know why Category:Categories for discussion from July 2012 has one item in it? Vegaswikian (talk) 02:15, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes, because this edit was part of a group of CFM/CFDs which were incompletely withdrawn by the nom. On 5 July 2012, Mayumashu (talk · contribs) put {{subst:cfm}} or {{subst:cfd}} onto 6 categories, and created a shared entry at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 July 5. The noms were withdrawn with the removal of the CFD entry, but only 5 of the 6 category edits were reverted. --Redrose64 (talk) 08:12, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll remove the old tag and delete the category. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:24, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

I had the notion to create a new sub-category for Category:Thing (assembly) for Scottish sites. There are a number of alternatives such as:

• Category:Things of Scotland or Category:Scottish things, both of which might strike the casual reader unfamiliar with Scandinavian Scotland as either frivolous or unnecessarily broad in scope. (I suppose an advantage could be that this might draw attention to the topic).
• Category:Scottish things (assemblies), which may satisfy some purists but seems rather cumbersome to me.
• Category:Scottish Þings would have the reverse attributes and is my preferred option but I don't want to precipitate a contentious discussion about inconsistent naming or the use of non-standard letters which may have already been done to death in some by-way of CfD.

Comments and suggestions welcome. Ben MacDui 14:32, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

An editor is wholesale, it seems, deleting all references to a cat. Rather than bringing the cat here for discussion. See here.--Epeefleche (talk) 02:12, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

if the editor doesn't revert, you should revert all of these and ask them why they are removing valid cats.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 02:56, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I asked him -- prior to leaving word here. He now hasn't edited since my message/question to him, following his mass deletions. And I myself don't have the tools to revert his dozens of deletions in any easy, systemic fashion.--Epeefleche (talk) 04:06, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2013_November_9#Template:Set_category. This is a template intended to be placed on top of set category pages. I have proposed it for deletion. Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 05:14, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Again with this same set of people I've been dealing with for months[7]? I thought

05:48, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't think we have ever limited CFD discussions to a dualistic choice of "Keep" or "Delete". Other options should always be explored. The question is simply what terms we should use for those other options. Personally, I think "Clean up" is a more positive sounding term than "Depopulate"... but they effectively mean the same thing. Blueboar (talk) 15:03, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Yea, the close options are based on the consensus in the discussion and not limited to keep or delete. We have had merge, dual upmerge, triple upmerge, split, listify, rename, cleanup, cleanup and bring it back, convert to an article along with others. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:18, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

For the record this stems from two discussions - Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2010 January 18#Category:Homophobia which was closed by another admin as to not include individuals & organisations in that category, and Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2011 February 9#Bias categories which I closed, finding consensus for an across the board consistent position and for applying the same inclusion/exclusion criteria. CFD discussions often go into the contents as well as the name and existance of a category; there are far more outcomes than Keep, Delete and Rename. Consensus can change but in such a fraught are it would only be a lasting change from a subsequent discussion. One individual declaring they disagree with the arrangement is insufficient grounds to overturn the status quo. Timrollpickering (talk) 22:58, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

To give Kendrick the benefit of the doubt... the "status quo" before those discussions seems to have been to include people in such categories. What the discussions indicate it that

Consensus has changed, and the current consensus is to not include them. That's OK... but perhaps we should amend the guideline to better reflect that change in consensus. Blueboar (talk

) 16:07, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

2014 April 19

Were there really no nominations started on this day? Or has something gone wrong with the page? If there were none, that has to be a first in a very long time. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 16:37, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

The page history shows nothing.

I don't recall any previous day with no discussions, since I first participated in CFD back in 2006. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:54, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

I remember checking throughout the day and surprised to find the page blank each time. This has really never happened before? I thought it was just an Easter weekend lull. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:03, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Like BHG, I can't remember it happening since CFD starting dividing its discussions into individual days, which I think was in 2006, which was before I started editing. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 06:36, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Do any of you remember what happened on that day? I looked at my diary -no meetings. I checked my email - no emails sent or received. Then I checked my edit logs - no edits here, in fact, no edits by any editors. I also checked NY Times - their news desk told me they didn't publish a paper that day, they couldn't remember why. I think something is going on here and we need to get to the bottom of it.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:03, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm sure it's something to do with the furious preparations for 4:20 day. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 23:15, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Odd. I don't have anything in my calendar for THAT day either. What the heck was I up to?--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 23:35, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

@Bleaney:, why have you depopulated Category:Comprehensive schools in London, and its borough sub-categories, without discussion at CfD? It is part of Category:Comprehensive schools in England. A process is required to establish a consensus to delete or merge categories, after which the work on member articles can usually be automated. – Fayenatic London 23:05, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

I have depopulated these categories as they meaningless - Since the academies and free schools programmes many schools are free to opt out of the national curriculum and therefore do not offer a truly 'comprehensive' education. Even the remaining community schools, VA and VC schools now often have 'specialisms'. All of this is covered in the Comprehensive schools article. What I have done instead is categorise the articles by school type, which has much more meaning in terms of knowing the type of curriculum on offer. Bleaney (talk) 23:23, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Eh? you just wrote here that specialisms have ended, although that was news to me. Anyway, specialisms and curriculum have not got much to do with admissions, which I thought was the main point of comprehensives - i.e. all abilities together, as opposed to selective schools. Beyond that, even if you had done most of the work on the London categories, they have been there for years, and are (were) part of a national categorisation scheme which you have now started to dismantle, apparently without seeking consensus first. Please take the England categories to CfD for approval of your changes; otherwise, I think the London categories should be reinstated. – Fayenatic London 23:57, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

The old DfES Specialist schools programme has ended (see Specialist schools programme) meaning schools no longer get dedicated funding for their specialisms. Yet many still offer a specialised curriculum so therefore not comprehensive. I really didn't think this would be controversial, I thought the cleanup was long overdue, besides any school that still proudly shouts about its comprehensive credentials can be referenced in the main body of the article. Considering that Academies now make up more than 50% of all secondary schools in England now, I think the Comprehensive schools categories are obsolete. Bleaney (talk) 00:17, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

The article Comprehensive school is very clear in its intro: "comprehensive" is not about curriculum, but about intake. Therefore your arguments have no relevance. Please revert your edits, or submit them to discussion at a formal CfD nomination. – Fayenatic London 16:36, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

The same goes for Category:Specialist schools in London, as it was part of Category:Specialist schools in England. Your argument is more relevant for dismantling that, but it still requires discussion. Deleting just the London part from an England category hierarchy, as you have done, strikes me as unhelpful to the encyclopedia. – Fayenatic London 16:52, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Who cares what you think Fayenetic, I was bold and did what I thought was right... I still do. My advice is read the comprehensive schools article in full, and who said deletion of catefories required discussion? If you dont like it, YOU take it further, im fine. Bleaney (talk) 17:34, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

And actually why do I have to discuss the deletion of a category? Why are editors given the option to request a speedy deletion if they are not supposed to? So am I to assume that every single category on Wikipedia is sacrosanct and must go to committee before being deleted? Bleaney (talk) 17:53, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

That's the policy for deletion, yes. According to Wikipedia:Categories for discussion#Ready for deletion, I hereby notify and request that you should follow the procedure in future. – Fayenatic London 18:41, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Just an overall comment. There have been a long list of these that were processed as empty. I think I saw the first batch about a month ago. Maybe someone on the other side of the pond needs to check the list of emptied categories more often. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:24, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

On the schools: I accept the argument for deletion of specialist schools, as most if not all English secondary schools seem to have a specialism now, and I'm not convinced that specialisms are

WP:DEFINING, so please continue your good work and nominate Category:Specialist schools in England and the rest of its sub-cats for deletion. However, comprehensive schools is a counterpart to Category:Grammar schools in London, and I think it should be repopulated. Which part of the page Comprehensive school would point to deletion of the category? – Fayenatic London

18:49, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

I think my point is Fayenetic is that as most English secondary schools seem to be comprehensive, i'd use the same

WP:DEFINING argument. Grammars dont need comps to counterbalance them, they are defninitive in their own right, and most areas of England dont have grammar schools any way. Bleaney (talk

) 18:53, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

@Fayenatic london:, please see Comprehensive school (England and Wales)#Current status.

Thanks, I see that argument Bleaney. Nevertheless, a discussion is required, and the London categories should only be deleted if the whole England category tree goes. – Fayenatic London 21:10, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Note. Category:Specialist schools in London, Category:Music Colleges in London, Category:Technology Colleges in London, Category:Arts Colleges in London and Category:Mathematics and Computing Colleges in London are all empty and listed for deletion after 72 hours. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:31, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Well I was working at getting rid of the whole category tree for England actually before your intervention and am qyuite happy to continue if people are happy for me to do it. Bleaney (talk) 17:21, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

My intervention? Vegaswikian (talk) 18:08, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

I think these categories should be deleted... The specialist schools programme has ended, and the schools that still claim to have a specialism do this on their own appointment. Also many of these claimed 'specialisms' dont fit neatly into these categories any more. The specialist schools programme barely lasted a decade, and I think its impact in the general history and development of Education in England is not notable enough to justify keeping these categories for posterity. Besides, ive always thought these categories are too ambiguous in their naming considering their scope - Language College could mean many different things to a reader, and referring only to a bunch of schools who previously had a specialism in languages for a while may be misleading. I think the whole category tree should be deleted, and im quite happy to work through and do it. Bleaney (talk) 19:18, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

@

WP:CFD process. – Fayenatic London

13:14, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

I have now tagged all the remaining Specialist schools categories for deletion, and listed them at

WP:TROUT you. – Fayenatic London

08:27, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't think it has occurred to several editors that removing the cats Comprehensive schools in XXXX is a political act and a breach of WP:NPOV. With my non-wp hat on I have been on the front line fighting to make Kent county council to obey Circular 11/66 and 10/68 and remove selection from its schools. My children went to one of the two comprehensive schools of the 104 secondary schools in Kent. That was very much a political and ethical decision. Though it remains a comprehensive school in its intake we lost the battle to keep it from becoming an academy. ( I missed the short discussion on Specialist school cats- but leave them be, for certain specialist users they are important, and have a residual permanent affect).

The eradication of the term Comprehensive School and replacing it with the derisory term bog standard comprehensive school is very much on the flailing British Conservative Parties agenda- with my wp hat on on I am above such Neo-liberal propaganda and seek to keep wp free of such spin. I can imagine the Govian speech where he announces that even Wikipedia has deleted Comprehensive schools from their vocabulary- we are all free schools now. Must I continue. References to the bog standard discussionb.

The practicalities of moving the content of Comprehensive schools in XXXX to Secondary schools in XXXX means that we have errors. The former Direct Grant Schools which are now private- indeed all 11-16 private schools belong in that cat- which unfortunately is not very useful. See Stockport and Stockport Grammar School which has been a secondary school since 1487- and in Canterbury we have an example from AD597.

If it is any comfort the incoming Labour government in 1944 had a similar problem in classifying school- and couldn't do it, which is why in the 1944 Education Act there was a category- Schools by Special Agreement for the ones that just didn't fit in.

• Secondary Schools- refer to Schools categorised by age. See Nursery/Infant/Junior/Mixed Juniors
• Comprehensive Schools- refer to Schools categorised by entry requirement Secondary modern/Comprehensive/Grammar/Special
• Local authority schools- refer to Schools categorised by funding regime Independant/Free/Academy/Local authority schools/Former Direct Grant/Special Agreement/Voluntary Controlled (Church School Anglican)/Voluntary Aided (Church School RC)
• Specialist Sports Academy- refer to school categorised by curricula initiative-

The proposals above blur the four separate trees and cause greater confusion: each school will automatically belong to four categories- one on each row. I suggest you study this and populate and restore the deleted categories, and check that each school occurs in each tree. A brief description of the term should be included as a lead in each cat page.

As a final thought- ask any man in the street (or Guardian journalist) to describe the system of education in England and he will describe the one pertenant in his own authority and will be blissfull unaware of the system 10 miles away- where each of the words can mean a different thing.

(Scarred in Bromley, Bexley, Greenwich, Kent, Medway, Stockport, Cheshire, Manchester, Trafford, Hereford and Worcester, Tyne and Wear) -- Clem Rutter (talk) 09:22, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

@Bleaney: it looks as if specialist schools categories, which I tagged for you, are going to be deleted at CFD April 10. On the other hand, a trial nomination for comprehensive schools at CFD April 15 was gathering weight to "keep and repopulate" the categories, before the nominator withdrew it. Please will you now either make a top-level CFD nomination, or re-populate the comprehensive schools categories and reinstate the vanished ones that you emptied out of process? – Fayenatic London 06:38, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

I dont really know how to Fayenatic. I wont be repopulating the categories as I dont believe they are right. But i'm happy to debate it as part of a CFD. - Bleaney (talk) 12:11, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

WP:CFD and let me know if any of it is not sufficiently clear or does not seem to work. Also, please join the discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2014 May 2#Category:Comprehensive schools in London. – Fayenatic London

15:15, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Category pages becoming movable soon

Effective May 22nd, category pages will be movable. This only affects the page (contents of the category must still be fixed manually). The benefit of this is that renaming categories no longer requires a copy-and-paste move of the description page (and all the trouble with keeping attribution). Jackmcbarn (talk) 03:25, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Some discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive262#Category_pages_will_be_movable_soon. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:51, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I want to nom Category:Second Italo-Ethiopian War by country and the tree under it 4 cats), minus the one nonempty cat. Can it be done with Twinkle? The instructions here are maddeningly unintelligible for me, and I don't want to make a mess (again). trespassers william (talk) 22:14, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Just went thru the procedure for the first time, and when I reached the "preview before saving" step of part II, "Edit the Category" the instructions lost me.

First off: the part about previewing should explicitly say this is a convenience step in order to get the correct template to use for part III. I consider myself a fairly experienced and analytical wikipedian, but I couldn't understand why I should muck about with the cfd2 template twice, first in the preview step of part II, and then apparently again in the (seemingly unconnected) part III. Consider instead:

Feel free to Preview before saving. The display will remind you of the exact template to use for the next step, part III below.

Note how this is much more specific about what to do, and why.

Secondly: I'm not familiar with "tags". Let's call these for what they are: templates. If you meant to tag pages using templates, then that's not what you wrote. In other words:

Add one of the following templates at the beginning of the category text to tag every category to be discussed.

Note how this avoids users asking "what is a tag?". To tag pages using templates, on the other hand...

Thirdly (and now I admit this is a bit of a squabble): Don't just tell the user to "preview before saving". Include "Now save" as an explicit step, making it crystal clear what to do and when.

1. Please include "CFD", "CFM", "CFR", "CFS", or "CFC" in the edit summary, and don't mark the edit as minor.
2. Preview before saving. The display will remind you of the exact template to use for the next step, part III below.
3. Now save.
4. See the documentation pages at ... for more specific information.

Much easier to follow.

Thank you,

) 11:51, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

@

CapnZapp

: I just noticed the above. Thanks very much for the feedback; I'll look into it next week.

Meanwhile, for everyone's info, I have listed the current backlog for April (see

WP:ANRFC. – Fayenatic London

14:42, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Categorization#Limiting_category_moves

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Categorization#Limiting_category_moves. Thanks. Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 19:48, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Is there any etiquette involved regarding CfD? Twice I've come across the situation that people started editing category pages after I posted a CfD - unfortunately not for the better! - . I would find it a matter of politeness not to change anything while the discussion is pending. When changes are being made during the discussion by a single person, it becomes very difficult for anyone else to follow the discussion. (Or if there's no etiquette I would rather propose to automatically block category pages that are under discussion.) Marcocapelle (talk) 19:34, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Normally, it is permitted to edit categories under discussion - for example, to add/update parenting and update inclusion criteria. What is generally frowned upon is removing articles from the categories under discussion or clearing them out, but adding articles to categories under discussion is permitted.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 19:44, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Dear Obiwankenobi, thank you for your answer. I understand that adding articles to categories under discussion are permitted. What I mean, though, is when people change the category structure in itself, so that it no longer clear for discussants how the proposal for category change relates to the actual categorization. Personally I find that rather confusing and even annoying. Updating inclusion criteria is also questionable if the proposal for category change is based on the inclusion criteria as they existed originally. Kind regards, Marcocapelle (talk) 19:47, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

I guess it comes down to whether the changes are fixes or dramatic changes to meaning. Sometimes a category has no inclusion criteria, so such will be added during the discussion, which is fine. Also, sometimes categories have no parents, or have incorrect parents, and again, fixing this is normal once it's under discussion. If you happen to disagree with any such changes, then you can revert, but I don't see a conflict or a reason to not be bold in many cases.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:56, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

When a category redirect is proposed for deletion, should the discussion be held at RFD or CFD? I'm not sure, so I've made a proposal at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 113#Deletion of category redirects. Your participation would be appreciated. Nyttend (talk) 21:39, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Hello. There are a lot of categories in Category:Politics_of_Solomon_Islands that require a speedy nomination to match Solomon Islands. However, it is too much for me to do by myself. I was wondering if Twinkle was able to put all of these nominations together. --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 18:47, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

And which ones are those? The ones with the 'in the' or 'of the' form are correct. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:52, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, but since this cateogry and Governors-General of the Solomon Islands category were recently changed (see history) I assumed that the "in the" and "of the" subcategories would have to be moved as well. --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 20:21, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Was that another unreviewed out of process move? If so, it does not set any precedent for additional moves. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:33, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't know. Both were soft-redirected. There might be more. --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 00:34, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Is an editor allowed to enter multiple !votes at one discussion, as here? --Epeefleche (talk) 00:53, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Of course not. Someone can comment as many times as necessary, but it's generally bad form to place repeated bolded !votes. It's been a common practice for the repeated !votes to be struck out by other editors, but some users do take offence at that, as this editor seems to have done. I think you've done the best thing in asking the editor to strike the duplicates. In the end I suppose it's not a huge deal, as any closer worth his or her salt will be able to read the discussion and discern that the repeated votes are coming from the same user. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 01:16, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I agree as to any closer worth his or her salt. It's more an issue of the other editors reading the comments, however -- we can't assume that level of understanding of all who will participate in it before the end. And G-d help us if this becomes an acceptable practice, partaken in by many others. I view it as intentionally disruptive, in this case, after all the conversation with the editor. Epeefleche (talk) 01:41, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

That's true—at the end of the day it is just simply confusing for others to read, and if it's being done to confuse or to make an argument look stronger than it is, then that's a disruption problem. I've left the user a similar note asking him to strike the duplicates—we'll see what happens. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 01:44, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Discussion is moved from Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Question_regarding_categories

17:48, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

MD is ignoring "Notability is the test that is used to determine if a topic should have its own article." How is Category: Soap opera actors any more important than this category? The Estern genre was massive, there were hundreds of series', thousands of actors (regular cast members) and they spanned several decades. IMO the editor has been abusing policy by demanding "reliable sources" when virtually every series and actor in question is linked to IMDB (which has not been classed "reliable" not "unreliable" but in many cases in the best we have as books on these series are not going to be easy accessible or affordable. In short: a category verifiable via IMDB is better than no category at all, and men actors have been involved in many genres what exactly is "defining"? Indexing isn't about POV as much as about making articles accessible to readers, as it creates a list through which they can reach a list of names of the many actors in a genre, whether it be soaps, westerns some music genre or other. Fussing over petty trivialities as MD is is missing the point as to why we're building this encyc. and adding unnecessary disputes. His/her reverts were poorly managed, POV-based and lack, not only good faith, but an understanding of who categories are for. Not us editors, but the millions of readers who we never see: indexing for accessibility not just POV notability. But Westerns are a notable genre, all these series are created, the actors names are present in them so they are notable for that fact already. Just as lesser-actors are "notable" for appearing in soaps where there is far less recognition for them. 82.8.252.13 (talk) 18:01, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

None of this displays any understanding of the basic posiciy regarding cats as italicized on your talk page and above. There needs to be

reliably sourced info showing that the genre is a defining characteristic of the person whose article the cat is added to. MarnetteD|Talk

18:18, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

And once agin you ignore the question: what is the "defining" characteristic of an actor who has had roles in several genres, when the Western genre is in itself a defining genre with a huge array of articles? Also, could you show me any editor who reads and verifies an entire article before categorising it just to be sure it meets your persona expectations? I see editors bulk-adding dozens of articles per seconds with HotCat and AWB, many are stubs 3-5 lines long with no sources at all. Do you revert and harass them also, for their good faith contributions to wikipedia? Do you abuse policy and choose to remove dozens of cats as "red cat" rather than simple add a TOC to the cat in question to confirm it? There is good faith and there is side-stepping policy to your own advantage, and it is clear for all to see that you choose the war-path instead of the honest alternative. Oh, but "you don't work for me" you say. I wasn't aware anyone did...

WP:BITE-like fashion. 82.8.252.13 (talk

) 18:33, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

I would propose to move this discussion to Wikipedia_talk:Categories_for_discussion (and close it here) and put a request for comment at the end for it to see what others have to say about it. If response is to low after 4 days days move the discussion to Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Categories and try again. Cheers Mion (talk) 18:40, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the idea Mion. The reason I didn't go to CFD first is that I wasn't proposing that the category be deleted. I know that page is titled "Categories for Discussion" but the discussions are about deletion, renaming or merging and I was not proposing any of these. Please feel free to move this to wherever you see fit. MarnetteD|Talk 18:49, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

It seems the newly created category is a doublure as many of the actors also appear in Category:Western (genre) film actresses and Category:Male Western (genre) film actors (maybe i'm wrong in this), the newly created cat lacks the category nesting at the bottom of the page, 'ill move the discussion to Wikipedia_talk:Categories_for_discussion for more input. Mion (talk) 19:10, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure if we need (genre) + (format) + (actors) - soap operas are unique in that they only appear on television. Perhaps move both to Western (genre) actors, regardless of film or television? That would simplify things somewhat. In any case, CFD is the right place, even if there isn't a proposal to merge or delete or rename, it could be used also just to clarify inclusion criteria.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 19:20, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes there are a lot of Western actors who appeared in both television series and films, such as Clint Eastwood, William Boyd, and so forth, but there are also many who did not, such as John Wayne, Gary Cooper, and so on. I'm not sure it would be right to mix several thousand purely film actors in with television actors who never made any films as it would make make those categorise twice as big as they should be instead of sub-categorised into respective (and still large) media formats. I think someone split Western actors into male/female because it was vast, so to bulk those out with TV actors might be an injustice to the point of sub-categorising and making names easier to identify. I also think it ignorant of MD to ignore that a lot of actors are categorised for being in Western films when they only made one or two, yet he doesn't think an actor being in an entire series and every episode of one notable series qualifies as "defining". For example: John Wayne's appearances in Westerns were defining of his film career, but was, say, Steve McQueen's who appeared in only four Westerns of his 40+ credits, because he's in Category:Male Western (genre) film actors. It's subjective and highly POV to place a minimum number of appearances before deciding a category applies, in such a way, though obviously cameos are not worth considering, yet this is what MD has done, he has personally decided that "one or two don't cut it". Foolishly even removing Eric Fleming from the new category without a clue that this was his defining role, not just in Western TV, but in his entire acting career. 82.8.252.13 (talk) 19:39, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

If anyone wants to take this to CFD that is okay. I started this post in an attempt to get other editors to point out to the IP that they have added to the category to numerous articles in violation of the policy regarding adding categories to article. To repeat A central concept used in categorising articles is that of the

19:57, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Category:Psychiatric instruments

Category:Psychiatric instruments contains many subcategories with colons. Note that there's no psychiatric instrument article yet, and I'm not a psychiatrist, but online search suggests that a psychiatric instrument is a type of assessment tool used in psychiatry, and all of the contained articles in the subcategories are indeed on the assessment tools rather than about the respective disorders. I can't find anything in policy about the use of colons in category names, but I wonder whether there's a better way to name them. Perhaps if they were renamed along the lines of Category:Psychiatric instruments: anxiety becoming Category:Psychiatric instruments for anxiety, etc. I thought I should get feedback from other editors before taking this to CFD. Thanks, Categlory (talk) 12:53, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Removing categories

Is "Unless the change is non-controversial (such as

vandalism or a duplicate), please do not remove the category from pages before the community has made a decision," supposed to apply to regular editing behavior? IE, choosing to remove the category by editors, or is it supposed to apply to bulk removal? Hipocrite (talk

) 23:05, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

It applies when categories are being discussed for deletion/renaming/etc. The point is, it is hard for the community to see the intended scope of the category if people are voiding it. This is a typical technique used to weaken a category before deletion, to try to blast away most of the contents, and is usually frowned upon. non-controversial removals are fine (e.g. something that clearly doesn't fit), but if you're reverted, you should just wait until after the discussion on the cat finishes. FWIW, this question is based on the discussion currently going on about the possible deletion of Category:Violence against men and subcats.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 23:23, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Removal of template cfd-speedy

Category:Classical composers by nationality has been moved to its current name recently. It's still in Category:Categories for speedy renaming though, so it looks like there's a proposal to rename it to itself. I guess someone forgot the cfd template there. Could I just remove it?

HandsomeFella (talk) 08:38, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

This is what happens when you allow everyone to move a category. If you want to remove the tag, all of the cleanup should be done first. Or rename it back and renominate so that the move would be done normally. No idea which is best. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:31, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Close own proposals as non-admin?

Is it allowed to close own proposals, before admin does it? Because I as proposer was myself convinced that the proposal is not good and at the same time god an idea for a better solution. Admin thinkgs I still want discussion in proposal but I want to archive it and open better proposal with better, different idea. CN1 (talk) 10:04, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

If nobody else has commented, or all the comments are opposed to your proposal, then you may withdraw it, and (if you wish & know how) do a non-admin closure it as "Withdrawn". However, once anybody else has expressed support or made alternative proposals, you must let the discussion run. (For reference: 1, 2)

Note that you can make your own alternative proposals in the discussion that is open. – Fayenatic London 10:43, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

CN1, I have now closed the first one as Rename, to your third proposed name. In future, if you change your mind during a discussion, please don't remove your previous proposals that people had commented on, but use <s> </s> tags to strike them out instead. Otherwise it is hard for the person doing the close to understand what people were responding to. – Fayenatic London 13:40, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Dutch cricketers

At Category:Dutch cricketers, there is no description and the hatnote says "Classification: People: By occupation: Sportspeople: Cricketers: By nationality: Dutch". When placed on the page of a player, this means to me that the player is of Dutch nationality. Unfortunately, it has also been used on players that simply play for the Dutch national team, and were born elsewhere.

For other countries, this distinction is clearly made. For example, Category:Australian cricketers is for any player that plays for the Australian team, while Category:Cricketers from Australia is for cricketers of Australian nationality, regardless of the team for which they play. Prose is present at the top of each category page, clarifying this.

Shouldn't we add a Category:Cricketers from the Netherlands, change the hatnote on Category:Dutch cricketers to clarify that it's for anyone that plays for the Netherlands team, and add it to the relevant players? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 22:50, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

We should probably do this... my only hesitation is whether the two categories would be overly duplicative. Could you give us a rough idea of how many players would appear in one category and not in the other? Are there many notable Dutchmen who play for teams other than the Netherlands team? Are their any non-Dutchmen who play on the Netherlands cricket team? Blueboar (talk) 11:52, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

For a (still messy) precedent, see how Footballers are categorised in Category:Association footballers by country. Although the structure is not yet consistent, see for example Category:footballers in England which currently contains Category:English footballers and Category:Footballers who have played in England. I'm not sure the latter is needed as well as its sub-cat Category:Expatriate footballers in England. – Fayenatic London 13:52, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Category moved out of process

One category that I had proposed for speedy renaming has been moved manually to the proposed target by another user. He probably saw the message, and decided to "just do it" himself. Some subcategories and articles have been re-categorized, but not all. I have placed a "warning" immediately below the moved category on WP:CFD/Speedy, and have posted a message to the user.

Maybe the stop sign – "Do not use the "Move" tab" – immediately preceding the "Current nominations" heading could be included in the CFD message on proposed categories. The user who moved it probably never followed the link to the speedy page, and thus saw the stop sign.

Is there a way to remove the "Move" tab on categories that have the CFD message?

HandsomeFella (talk) 18:54, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Notifying @Armbrust: and @Fayenatic london:. HandsomeFella (talk) 19:12, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

The move tab for all users has never received a consensus to have it from the community. The foundation placed it there ignoring all existing policies, guidelines and protests. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:48, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Agreed (with VW); you can read our discussion about it at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive262#Category pages will be movable soon. What you suggest is probably not something we can expect to happen. It would be more viable to campaign for stronger warnings on the page that comes up when moving a category. This ought to be something that could be edited by admins for each wiki.

Feel free to revert a move if you spot any more that have been done out of process. As a non-admin, I assume you will be able to do so, providing the old page has not been edited after it became a redirect. – Fayenatic London 20:25, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Allright, I'll try to revert the move. I guess the re-categorized article and subcat stay where they are. Less job for the bot. HandsomeFella (talk) 20:29, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

It didn't work. The software said that "it appears that the revert has already been undone", or something similar. HandsomeFella (talk) 20:33, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

I also tried to move the category back to the old name, but that didn't work either, despite the fact that the (soft) redirect has not been edited after the move. HandsomeFella (talk) 22:57, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

What categories? Vegaswikian (talk) 23:21, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Category:Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau (now a soft redirect) was moved to Category:Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield–Cape Girardeau. (The difference is an endash instead of a hyphen.)

HandsomeFella (talk) 07:47, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

For that one, the bot should clean up when it gets listed in a little bit. So while wrong, it probably is not something that needs to be undone a this point. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:05, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

This seems to be a recurring problem. I saw that Fayenatic just pinged another user for the same reason. What about my suggestion to include the stop sign in the message displayed by Template:Cfr-speedy full? HandsomeFella (talk) 10:56, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

I guess we could do something like that. Do you have the full proposed wording? Or use what you suggested above? Vegaswikian (talk) 18:05, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

HF means the warning here. I've adapted this slightly and added it into this new version of the template.

Thanks for the suggestion, HandsomeFella. (I misunderstood earlier and thought you were suggesting that a warning should be displayed by the MediaWiki software when doing the MovePage function, e.g. Special:MovePage/Sandbox.) – Fayenatic London 21:26, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

OK, I did a minor wording tweak also. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:41, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Great! That's perfect. HandsomeFella (talk) 22:13, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Delete needed

Category:Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau (now a soft redirect), previously moved out of process (see above), needs to be deleted. I know you work hard, so this is just a friendly reminder. Thanks.

HandsomeFella (talk) 08:32, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

WP:CATRED encourages us to leave soft redirects to names with special characters, from forms that can by typed with standard keyboard characters. This applies especially with redirects from hyphens to dashes, but also with redirects from plain letters to diacritics. If you use WP:HotCat, you'll find it automatically substitutes the target category if you give it the redirected one, which can be jolly useful. So, I intentionally retained that redirect page. – Fayenatic London

21:13, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Create a BOT to alphabetize and organize categories automatically

As someone who has been doing this manually for years, I hereby dutifully beg of anyone who is technically proficient and knows how to create and run a bot that will:

1. Automatically sort all Categories on each article and category page alphabetically;
2. Create a uniform system for where to place categories on each article and category page that commence with numbers, such as years of birth/death, centuries, and any category that starts with a number/numeral.

Please see the centralized discussion at Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 61#Create a BOT to alphabetize and organize categories automatically. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 09:03, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Discussion re-opened at VPP

Please see Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 114#Create a BOT to alphabetize and organize categories automatically. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 22:44, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Tech help required to improve categories

Please see Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#CatVisor and User:Paradoctor/CatVisor#Planned features if you are willing and able to assist this innovative WP project move along it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 23:10, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Closing old discussions

There are still some unclosed discussions from 11 July. As it is very unlikely that any additional contributions to these discussions will be made, could anybody to close these discussions or at least re-list them. Thank you in advance. Beagel (talk) 18:23, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

OK, those are now closed. There is still a backlog of discussions requiring closure, including 17 older than that, see

WP:CFDAC. – Fayenatic London

20:31, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Category moves

Now that category pages (but still not their contents) can be moved using the '

WP:CFD/W or continuing the previous practice of Cydebot creating a new category (with attribution) and deleting the old category. The only relevant thread I can find is the highly convoluted one here, but even that discussion was concerned more with restricting or not restricting this new ability rather than whether or not it should be used following category discussions. Thanks, -- Black Falcon ^(talk

) 20:02, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

• If, through discussion at WP:CFD, there is consensus to rename a category, I see no reason why the normal "move" process should not be used on the category page. Sure, moving the cat page does not recategorise the pages - but nor does the existing copypaste method. Cydebot can still be used to recategorise the individual pages; perhaps it can move the cat page too. After all, it moves the category talk page quite happily. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:54, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

• There's been some discussion about this at User talk:Cyde#Categories can be moved - please stop copy&pasting them. I'm in strong support of modifying Cydebot to take advantage of the category move feature. Having the full category history available should make it much easier to understand a category's past. - Eureka Lott 16:46, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support using "move". Currently Armbrustbot is moving category pages, but Cydebot – which does most of the work – is not. I have set out here several reasons why I sometimes move the pages manually, and discussed some pros and cons with Black Falcon. BF objected to keeping the page history of categories because it is mostly not interesting. I countered that category page history will be less cluttered in future, as changes to inter-wiki links are now held at Wikidata instead. In my view it is worth bearing with the other trivial edits in order to gain a readable trail of moves. For category renames up until now, it is necessary to do repeated "what links here" on red-linked (non-existent) categories to trace the old moves and the related discussions. It will be far more useful for the category page history to show the old category names from now on, with links to relevant CfDs. – Fayenatic London 21:07, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
• Note: in the convoluted thread linked above, it was taken as read by at least Jackmcbarn (15:11, 12 May 2014) and BrownHairedGirl (19:23, 13 May 2014) that bots would use the new "move" feature. Other editors who said they had long wanted this facility were Debresser (08:53, 14 May 2014) and jc37 (20:21, 14 May 2014). – Fayenatic London 21:24, 26 August 2014 (UTC)